Last year we worked with 18 brilliant disabled creatives on our Young Artist Development Programme (YADP). Their work is featured in a new zine called “Department for Wonder and Play”, more about this here. In addition to the digital and physical publication, we’re going to spotlight each artist on the blog so you can get a deeper insight into their work and process. Our Solidarity Coordinator Katie talked to Bryony about her work for the zine.

Bryony-alt-text.rtf

Bryony’s project is called Mirror Mirror in My Hand and is about how Bryony is perceived by, and communicates with, people who she originally thought were her friends, but who were bullying her. Turning this experience into an art piece helps Bryony to express herself. She says:

“I wanted to share my story in a creative way, and let others know you are not alone.”

Bryony has enjoyed being creative for a long time – and has tried out lots of different art forms. These include craft, photography, and performing arts. Over the last few years Bryony has been concentrating on developing her artistic practice.

For this project, Bryony used photography, editing software, scraps of colourful paper, stickers, gems, ribbons and more to create her collage. For her self-portrait, which is in the middle of the collage, she had help taking her photograph in a professional studio. She says:

“It was great to work with other creatives to work on the mood I wanted to portray. I love to collaborate with others, as all these ideas turn into a magical art piece.”

Bryony loved making the collage, and it’s something she’d like to develop into a larger project. She’d like to collaborate with artists and creatives from different backgrounds to do this.

Thank you so much Bryony for telling us more about your beautiful work, and the reasons why you made it.