THE ART OF HANNAH BUNN

Hannah Bunn, is a 24 year old art student at Loughborough University doing an Illustration with Animation degree course.

Like many people of her age, Hannah is a social smoker, who likes to get together with her friends for a drink and an occasional cigarette. She cares very much about her environment, and is aware that some people do not like to be in a smoky atmosphere.

As much as those people do not like being in a smoky atmosphere, Hannah and her friends, do not like being shunned out into the cold and rain, in order to smoke. Why can't we have separate rooms or pubs etc., for smokers?, she quite rightly asks.

Since being forced to stand outside, Hannah has had money stolen from her bag, and has also heard of several of her friends, having their drinks spiked. No one can say that these things would not have happened if Hannah had been inside the pub, instead of being forced outside, but there would definitely have been far less chance of it happening.

So what is Hannah and her friends doing about it? Like most people, they are moaning and complaining, but with the Government's propaganda machine working at full blast, their complaints mainly fall on deaf ears.

Hannah stands out above the average complainer, in the fact that she puts her money where her mouth is, by doing something positive. Rather than just moan, Hannah shows her rebellious streak by lighting up inside clubs and town centre pubs whenever she can, which I applaud her for, for if everyone did this right from the start, this ban would never have taken a hold, and been accepted, like it is today.

Artistic people have throughout history, led revolutions, and paved the way into overthrowing Governments. The role of fine art has been to simultaneously express values of the current culture while also offering criticism, balance, or alternatives to any such values that are proving no longer useful. So as times change, art changes. If changes were abrupt they were deemed revolutions. The best artists have predated society's changes due not to any prescenience, but because sensitive perceptivity is part of their 'talent' of seeing.

Artists have had to 'see' issues clearly in order to satisfy their current clients, yet not offend potential patrons. For example, paintings glorified aristocracy in the early 1600s when leadership was needed to nationalise small political groupings, but later as leadership became oppressive, satiriration increased and subjects were less concerned with leaders and more with more common plights of mankind.

In true artistic style, Hannah, has produced for us, two portraits of what is happening in Britain today, with regard to what many people see, as the criminalisation of a whole section of the British public.

Socialising in Britain, has changed overnight, the traditional British pub, no longer exists. In its place we now have sterile gastro style establishments, filled with women drinking bottles of designer water whilst their children play in groups all over the floor. Meanwhile, outside people huddle in groups, trying to keep warm, as they light up, made to feel like criminals.

This isn't Great Britain, this isn't the freedom which past generations fought for, this is pure oppression, and it has taken the eyes and thoughts of this talented young artist to recognise and to show it.

If you would like to raise any points, with Hannah, please do so through our forum boards, where she will be only too pleased to talk to you, time allowing of course.