As a 10-year-old, Nicky Carvell idolised pop singer Brian Harvey.
Now 15 years later, she has turned the singer in Nineties boyband East 17 into the star of her art college graduation show.
A photo of Harvey from a cover of an East 17 annual is the inspiration for her piece, called We Can All Admire All We See, But In The End We Can Only Choose One, which is on sale for £2,500 at the Royal Academy Schools show.
Carvell, who lives in Hackney, said: “I was obsessed with East 17. I grew up in Hemel Hempstead, but my dad used to drive me around Walthamstow looking for Brian. We never found him but we met this guy in a car park who claimed to be his mate.”
Carvell is one of 18 students in the show. Others include Joanna Bryniarska and Alex Knell.
Bryniarska 28, from Swindon, works with digital prints to show how history repeats itself in painting.
In The Reading by Knell, 31, from Chiswick, visitors sit at a table and listen to tarot card readings through headsets when they touch hands.
The show runs until 28 June, with admission free, in the RA Schools studios in Piccadilly at the rear of the Academy.
Via (The London Paper)
