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Name: Kate Donald

School: Durham High School for Girls

Town: Durham

County: Durham

Year: Year 13

Inspiration: Art has always been a passion of mine, and since I can remember I’ve been fascinated with form, colour and composition. The context and personal expression that is shown within a piece holds greater interest and inspiration for my own work, perhaps being the reason for my passion for the Pre Raphaelites, as it was their controversy and realistic portrayals of literature defining the time, that encapsulated me into their world. Like in the work viewed by Rembrandt and Freud, it is obvious that their manipulation of paint reflects the mood or feeling of their art, which I feel adds greater depth to a piece, especially in works of portraiture that I love to focus on. Within my work, I try to focus on pursuing personal concerns or links of my family past that are relevant to society today, for I feel art can work as a universal form of expression which language hinders. Thus by keeping my work personal I hope to create something that stands with political and significant meaning so that the visual conception stands with purpose and would hope to add value to individuals perceptive, rather than just having an aesthetic element to it.

Title: Feral Child.

Description: This painting is a portrait of my younger sister Sophie and our cat Maisy on wood panel, to whom she is very close to. After studying the background context of the Pre Raphaelites work and their portrayals of women in literature, I decided to portray my sister as the feral being I sometimes imagine her. It was Artaud’s concept of us all being deeply rooted with animal instincts that sparked this idea collaboratively with Waterhouse’s ‘The Niaad’. Sophie’s withdrawn and flippant attitude as a person suggests this kind of animal instinct as well as the comfort she express’ when she is with animals. The painting is therefore ultimately based on a poem I wrote on this solitary behaviour and the ability we all have to be animals of our own mind, whilst our delicate exterior suggests different.

Medium: Oil paints

Width: 70cm Height: 55cm