My chosen artist who influenced my piece was Arturo Herrera – a Venezuelan visual artist whose mediums include collage, works on paper, sculpture, relief, wall painting, photography and felt wall hangings. His works use fragments of imagery from popular culture, which mainly consists of an intertwining of cartoon characters with abstract shapes which aim to tap into a viewer’s subconscious memories.

He works around found images from cartoons, colouring books, and fairy tales. He combines fragmented characters with violent and sexual imagery which unsettles the innocence of Disney-like characters. His work plays on dark psychology and the human mind – with many of his works also containing elements linked to dance and music. His work has been described as a balance between figurative and abstract painting.

For my piece, I drew influence from his style of work in a painting. I worked in a similarly slightly figurative way and tried to abstract a slightly recognisable Disney character – Winnie the Pooh. My use of colour was to trigger the recollection of the well-known character and to also apply elements of child-like painting in terms of the visuals by using loose paint strokes and vibrant colour.