Hand-painted mannequins front
Aviator’s Christmas display

Priya Stamp, a BA (Hons) Fine Art student at UCA Farnham, is celebrating after being commissioned to paint mannequins at a Hampshire hotel for its Christmas display.

14 Dec 2021

The luxury Aviator Hotel in Farnborough commissioned Priya to hand paint eight elegant mannequins as part of the hotel’s Christmas theming after an open call brief to all Year 2 fine art students at UCA Farnham.

Working with Greig Burgoyne, UCA’s Subject Leader in Fine Art, to distribute the open call, the Aviator was inundated with entries. After reviewing all the proposals, Priya’s designs caught the eye of the hotel’s General Manager, Adam Skrzypczak.

Adam commented: “At Aviator, we’re known for being bold and creative and particularly during the Christmas period we wanted our guests to be wowed when they visited the hotel. We thought Priya’s design proposal stood out as the most imaginative and complementing our brand. We could see the vision behind her design and how she had carefully digested the brief”. 

^{©Priya Stamp}

Drawing her inspiration from the art deco era, abstract art and the roaring 20s, Priya created individual and complementary designs that each used metallic paint, intricate brush strokes together with the hotel’s Christmas colour theme of black, gold and silver. 

Commenting on the project, Priya Stamp said: “Working with Aviator was a mind-blowing experience that I never thought I would obtain. I appreciated their faith in me as an artist. It meant a lot to be chosen out of all the submissions and to exhibit my artistic talents.”

^©Aviator

It took Priya less than a week to hand paint the mannequins, which will now be on display at the hotel throughout December.

Greig Burgoyne added: “This has been a great opportunity for our students to show their adaptability to a client’s brief and respond with innovation, creative strength, and confidence as the upcoming generation of new artists.”

If Christmas is sparking your creativity, find out how you can put it to good use on one of our creative courses.