Narina has also written this piece below for our Blog, on her background, her talent and her thoughts on creativity:
Creativity is something that’s always come very naturally to me however, I only realised I was ‘talented’ after moving to England, consequently being exposed to School along with teachers and other children who seemed to be rather surprised at how well I could draw.
Growing up in South Africa I spent my childhood alone in the sense that my parents raised my brother and me in the most rural parts of the country otherwise known as ‘The Bush’. I’d spend my days and sometimes nights exploring the surrounding terrains unbothered by adults or anyone for that matter, South Africa having such diversity of life, I would spend hours observing anything natural that I found interesting or uniquely beautiful.
Having this freedom to connect with the structure of nature in such an intimate way for the first few years of my life is what I believe helped me to learn creativity in its rawest form. After not getting an appropriate education until I was 7 years old, I came to the UK without the ability to read, write, or even count to number 10. I was severely uneducated in comparison to my peers who had been learning since nursery which was totally alien to me until I moved to England.
I prefer the term ‘creative’ over ‘artist’. The reason being that any form of self-expression is something that fascinates me, we are all our own artists in my opinion. Art is an easy way of showing off creative ability but it is by no means the only way. Mathematics and Sciences, Philosophy and ethics, all require creative thinking. I hope to inspire anyone who may unintentionally underestimate a person who happens to fall under a certain category of society, it is easy to forget how heavy a role the context of someone’s life can play in where they end up and how they get there. Certain events are simply inevitable under different circumstances.
Narina