Mary Nugent - BA (Hons) Creative Expressive Therapies
Mary Nugent with her penny portrait at the Derby Degree Show.
Mary's work at the Derby Degree Show at Britannia Mill
Mary Nugent, who graduated from our BA (Hons) Creative Expressive Therapies course in January 2011 caught the imagination of artistic audiences at the Derby Degree Shows with her penny portrait made out of 5,500 1p penny coins for her final project.
Her degree show project
Mary created a self portrait using 5,500 1p coins as part of her final year art exhibition for the Derby Degree Show which happened in the summer of 2010.
Mary said: "I was interested in exploring the benefits of education versus the cost of education which is why I chose to use penny coins as a symbol of money, to form a key component and material of my final project. I do think that from a personal perspective that my degree has been good value - I have developed a lot and got a lot out of the course and am now considering studying Art Therapy at Master's level."
In order to obtain the contrast of colour in the coins to produce the portrait, Mary separated the shiny coins from those which looked darker in colour, and also put some pennies outside on a plastic sheet for several months for the weather to turn them black in colour.
What's next for Mary
Mary has now entered the Saatchi online competition.
The winner gets to exhibit in the Saatchi Gallery in London. There will be two rounds of public voting and in the first round currently taking place until next Tuesday, the top 128 entrants will go into round two where the public votes for a second time.
At the moment, Mary has just made it into that top 128 and she is appealing for your vote to help her cement her place in the second round!
If you want to vote, click on the link below and register online with your email address and a password. Then go back to the link below and sign in again and it will take you directly to Mary's page. Click the vote here and it will be registered. Voting for the first round finishes on Tuesday.
Visit this link to vote:
http://bit.ly/hBt73n
