BA (Hons) Model Making & Visual FX students featured at this year’s New Blades 2022 Exhibition. An internationally recognised exhibition for professionals in the industry. We caught up with Ella Berry who featured in the exhibition with a piece focused around deterioration. Her work has also been selected against hundred of applicants to feature on the exhibitions invite and PR material!

BA (Hons) Model Making & Visual FX course leader John Noble said,”This is the first year of attendance for the BA (hons) Visual Effects and Model Making programme, which started in 2018, and we are proud to have Ella Berry with her piece ‘Deterioration’, alongside peers and a graduate from our 2021 cohort, Michael Coyle, representing The School at the exhibition.

Last years’ graduating class, ‘The Space Monkeys’, established a student championship trophy belt and, as the first ever recipient, Michael supported our programme team nomination for Ella to be crowned as our ‘Student Model Making Star of the Year’.”

Speaking of Ella and her work on the course john commented, “Ella is an amazing energy to be around, we remember her from her first open day and knew we had someone special joining us. Starting out in SFX make-up and gore, Ella has developed into a very sophisticated artist, pushing herself and the materials to new heights, alongside being a proactive student ambassador and reinvigoration the programme’s social media output. Ella has an infectious enthusiasm for getting the most out of life and inspires others around her to step outside of their comfort zones and achieve more than they thought possible, both in their academic work and life outside of The School, having spearheaded multiple events during her studies and always leading by example. We wish Ella all the best in her future pursuits and look forward to welcoming her back as a top-of-the-game industry speaker one day!”

We caught up with Ella to find out more about her work, read on to find out more!

Tell us about the work you are submitting for New Blades 2022!

The piece that I am submitting is called Deterioration and its based on the physical and emotional damage that brain disease like dementia can cause. This is dedicated to my Granny who lost her fight to dementia in 2018. Due to my personal experience with seeing what dementia can do to a person I wanted to create an emotive piece which uses all my skills I’ve learnt in the last 3 years. I started with a life cast and then used this to create the silicone head. I painted and individually punched the hair for the eyebrows and eyelashes which although a long process is quite therapeutic.

I wanted the piece to have the brain open and I created it so it was representative of what an actual brain with dementia looks like. I used the flowers baby’s breath to represent the life that is still in people who suffer with dementia. Although the person is no longer their complete self, they still do show glimmers of their personality and memories they have. My Granny continued to be a strong, vibrant and independent person until the end even when her brain started to shut down.

Let us know about any other projects you are working on!

Currently I am remaking this piece for New Blades which includes a head recast and creating a new base out of a tree trunk from my garden. I wanted to remake this as I knew that I could improve on it for both the degree show and New Blades.

What is special about The Northern School of Art?

I think the Northern School of Art is a hidden gem! It’s a great creative community full of some of the most talented people I’ll ever come across. For me the Northern Art has not just given me 3 years of learning about a new industry but given me friends for life. Anna Bant has been such a big support and driving system to my time here and I will be forever grateful to the Northern Art for putting us together in halls. As much as I’m so sad to be leaving this place it makes me so excited to see where we all will go with our careers and continue to blossom as friends for life.

What advice would you give to any young art students?

Don’t worry about fitting in or if you don’t think your work is as good as others its all about you being an artist. Continue to create the art you like and always have fun and the rest will follow.

You can catch up with Ella’s work on her Instagram @sfx_ella! If you are interested in VFX or Model Making we offer a fantastic course that you can find out more about here.