A YEAR 8 student at The Gryphon School in Sherborne has had her painting selected for the Young Artist Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.
There were more than 23,000 entries, with only a small number making it into the online exhibition and an even more select number for the physical exhibition.
Impressively, Alice Furlong’s work has made both.
Now in its seventh year, the Young Artists’ Summer Show is a free, open submission exhibition for students aged four to 18 studying in the UK.
Artworks are judged by a panel of artists and arts professionals, with selected artworks displayed online and on-site at the Royal Academy of Arts.
The online exhibition opens on July 15 and the display is on from July 15 to August 10.
Alice’s chosen subject for her piece was her grandmother’s kitchen in Romania.
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She said: “It might seem simple, but it’s a place special to me. I don’t get to visit her very often since she lives in Romania, so that space holds a lot of memories from when I was younger.
“I didn’t expect to win anything with my piece. I painted it the night before the entry deadline, on a cheap piece of paper.
Picture: The Gryphon School
“But since I like to sketch and paint in my free time anyway, I figured I might as well submit something.
“I like to draw interiors, and I often sketch scenes from my favourite music videos or video games so I thought it could be cool to draw something similar but with just more personal sentiment.
“I used a school watercolour palette, added depth with coloured pencils, and detailed the tablecloth lace with a gel pen.
“To get the layout right, I used Minecraft to map out the perspective and furniture from memory, since I didn’t have any reference photos.
“Art has always been a big part of my life. I’ve loved it since I was young. My family say I get it from my granddads because the rest of us aren’t particularly artsy.
“I take a lot of inspiration from the things I watch and listen to, films like Submarine, Scott Pilgrim vs the World or Amélie, and musicians like Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith, and Björk.
“Growing up in a family who never really had a lot of interest in creatives sort of makes you find a whole mixture of completely random media to enjoy.
“I think that’s why I like to talk about music and art so much; everyone is their own unique, interesting person.
“One day, I’d love to do something in filmmaking, maybe set design or cinematography. I hope to take one of the art-based subjects as a GCSE because I know I’ll always love creating and consuming art.
“It’s one of the most important things in my life, and I hope it will stay a constant for me as I grow up.”
Congratulations Alice……very impressed…..hope to visit the exhibition and admire the original….all the best for the future!