Year 9 student Emily, a true creative powerhouse who is bridging the gap between traditional craftsmanship and modern technology.

If you’ve attended any of our recent school theater productions, like Annie or our annual Winter Show, you’ve likely seen Emily’s passion for performance in action. But her creativity doesn't stop when the curtains close. Emily is a regular volunteer and fixture in our campus Maker Space, where she splits her time between mastering 3D printers, drawing and designing digital characters on Procreate, and teaching her peers the timeless art of sewing.

Emily recently blew us away with an incredible multi-disciplinary Maker Space project. She utilized the 3D printers to create a custom character doll, hand-sewed a tailored outfit for it, painted the fine details, and then styled a professional photoshoot to create a captivating stop-motion film! Emily’s dedication to learning, creating, and sharing her skills truly embodies the innovative spirit of ISW.

My work explores the intersections of imagination, storytelling, and identity by weaving together diverse physical and digital mediums. For this exhibition, I have brought together a collection of pieces that I have made over the past few years exploring my emotions and mind.

At the centre of my practice is character creation. My handmade bunny BJD (Ball-jointed doll) and its accompanying stop-motion animation bring a character that would otherwise be in the 2D into the 3D. This exploration of character extends into the digital realm, where I use Procreate to explore character designs. Finally, my painting of myself holding a rainbow introduces a central point that I like to explore in my art, passion. The rainbow represents the passion that you can find in the world through art and other creative fields and is one my favourite pieces that I've made.

By blending 3D printing, animation, painting, and digital art, I weave separate artistic disciplines into a single, interconnected creative voice.

LINO CUT & PRINT

Over the past two years, my artistic practice has been a quiet, dedicated exploration of the linocut medium, allowing me to bridge traditional influences with my own evolving vision.

Deeply inspired by the intricate beauty of Japanese woodblock prints and natural landscapes, I focus on capturing the serene yet powerful essence of the world around me. This foundational respect for line and form also guided me to translate the expressive, vibrant paintings of Vincent van Gogh into the structured, textured language of relief printing.

Through steady, patient refinement of my carving and printing techniques, my work has grown immensely in both technical precision and emotional depth, transforming a silent creative process into a resonant visual voice.

My goal for this painting was to symbolize how growth, life and fertility are woven throughout our world, stemming from the smallest forms of nature.

The organised geometric and textile-like patterns are almost spreading out from the silhouette of a single flowering plant, giving it its shape. These patterns are inspired by weaving techniques as well as natural structures found commonly in nature, which symbolize energy, growth and culture. They are purposefully restricted and organised to contrast the natural shape of the plant form, while also surrounding it and almost flowing out of the plant to represent the continuous spread of life, fertility and renewal throughout the natural world.

Acrylic paint, marker, coloured pencil and oil pastel were used to create layered textures and variation across the surface of the piece.