A lot of my work is really inspired by history and while I’m interested in history in general, there are definitely specific periods that I gravitate towards. I’ve visited the V&A lots of times since moving to London in September, it’s my favourite place here. I recently went to the painting exhibit a found it really influential on me and my art. I left feeling really excited about designing new characters and telling new stories set in the 1800’s. While the style of these paintings is very realistic, detailed and overall different from my own very stylised and shaped based style, the content and feeling of these paintings is something I want to recreate in my own work. The situations depicted are very romantic and wistful. A forlorn and longing kind of love in Francis Danby’s ‘Disappointed Love’ or the hopeful and whimsical love of Richard Redgrave’s’Cinderella’. The works below also show love from a female character’s perspective and this is a factor that I like to focus on in my own work.
My favourite pieces:
- ‘Disappointed Love’ (1793)- Francis Danby
- ‘The Deluge’ William Etty
- ‘Cinderella’ (1842)- Richard Redgrave
- ‘The Toilette’ 1849- C.R. Leslie
This trip made me really think about the kind of stories I want to work on. I knew that my dream is to be working on projects based in history but my love of romantic themes is something that only came to my attention recently whilst making my presentation.