The artwork I decided to choose for my inspiration was Dancing Mutants, painted by the artist Hernando R. Ocampo. He was a born on April 28th 1911 and was from the Philippines. He was best known for his amazing abstract artwork but was also a fictionist, playwright and an editor. Following in the modernist traditions, he used pretty bold colours in his art and used biomorphic shapes inspired by his country’s landscapes.

I decided that I wanted to use this as inspiration because I absolutely loved the colour palette and the designs he used. I tried to incorporate the similar shades and hues of red that he included in his and thought it was a great representation of what my painting is about. The red was included to show the heat and warmth I experienced when I was living back in Bahrain. I also took inspiration from the greens he used to help me represent the leaves on the palm trees in my painting, which are also common in the country. 12 and 21 were the numbers I chose for my artwork because I lived in the country for 12 years. I created a sort of reflection effect on it by placing the Arabic numbers on the top, they were used to represent the 21, which is how long my parents lived there for, and the English version flipped underneath. The change of language is used because of me living in a country where I’m surrounded by it all the time. I used a bold plain black for the shapes so it can draw attention and contrast with the calm tints and shades of the other colours. I added a shadow effect to the sand dunes to make it look more realistic and as if it’s continuing into the distance. I think of it as leaving something behind and keep on going. Just like how I left my home and experienced a change of life.