This was designed by Hussein Chalayan who is a Turkish/Cypriot designer who has designed many of Lady Gaga’s costumes including this one which she wore onstage at a festival. The dress/outfit is so out of the ordinary and I like clothes that challenge conventional ideas. The bubbles look real, I think that’s what makes the dress so interesting.

This is called ‘Ohne Titel’ by Marc Brandenburg, it was made in 2008 and I saw this in a gallery in Scotland. All it is is pencil on paper, and I like the simplicity of it, it looks like calm water. The artist was born in Germany in 1964.

This is a sculpture by Antony Gormley, most people recognize his name because of his ‘angel of the north’ sculpture, but this is one of my favorite pieces of art because he made it by taking a cast of his own body. I like how this sculpture explores the body itself not a representation of the body. The blocks are all at different angles which gives it texture and shows how a human body isn’t smooth and perfectly aligned, it has smooth parts and rough bony parts.

This is a painting called ‘The Ribbon of Extremes’ by Yves Tanguy, I saw this painting in a gallery in Scotland and I love the small detail at the bottom of the painting that breaks up towards the top until you get a smooth sky. The colours, although they are quite dark, really contrast against each other. It was painted in 1932, but it looks like a modern piece of art! Tanguy was a french surrealist painter who was born in Paris. His paintings have a unique, instantly recognizable style of nonrepresentational surrealism. They show vast, abstract landscapes, mostly in a tightly limited pallette of colours. These landscapes usually have abstract shapes just like this one, i love the contrast even though he's only used certain colours.

This is a Banksy graffiti piece, this is one of my favorite pieces of art because of the meaning of it, and the fact that Banksy is an anonymous artist. This image represents how some issues in society are ‘swept under the rug’, and ignored. The maid could represent the working class people. The way she is dressed could represent maids who work for very upper class people, perhaps in the victorian age. Banksy's work is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment.  His pictures usually include rats, monkeys, the elderly, the police, soldiers and children. Banksy began his work painting/spraying on walls without stencils, but he realised (whilst hiding under a car from the police) that stencils would be easier and quicker and still get his desired effect. At London zoo he climbed into the penguin enclosure and wrote "we are bored of fish" on the wall.

This is ‘My Bed’ by Tracey Emin, it is such a well known piece of art, but I love the concept of showing people your most intimate and personal space. I like the way she integrates her work and her personal life to connect with people. I see it as her way of showing the world that she’s as insecure and imperfect as everyone else. She bares everything, stained sheets, empty bottles of alcohol, cigarette ends...and they all show the remains of a 'breakdown'. I found out about this piece of art when i was researching the theme 'people' for A level, i think it represtents so many things about Tracey Emin's life.

This is a Claude Monet painting called ‘Sea Roses’, it can be found in the Tate Modern in London and it is one of my favourite pieces of art, because of the serene atmosphere it conveys. I saw it in London with my family; I liked a lot of other Monet paintings too but this one stayed in my mind. The colours complement each other, I love the contrast of the blue and yellow and the slight tint of pink! Monet was a French artist who was born in 1840. His father never approved of Monet's aspiration to become an artist, he wanted him to carry on the family grocery business, but Monet carried on to study in 'Le Havre' secondary school of arts. This is where he learnt to paint with oil on canvass. Monet couldnt understand some parts of the art school though, he didn't know why some of the students copied famous pieces of art, he often sat on his own painting what he saw out of a window.

The spider at Tate Modern is entitled Maman and was created in 1999. Made of bronze, stainless steel and marble, the arachnid is one of six original pieces constructed by Bourgeois and its appearance at the modern art gallery is the first time it has ever been on show in the UK.
Similar to the spider that filled the massive turbine hall of the Tate Modern when the gallery first opened, visitors to the old power station could walk in and around the spider's legs before they enter. Not neccessarily the most flattering of dedications in most people's eyes, the spider at Tate Modern is actually a tribute to Bourgeois' mother, who was a weaver. The giant female spider also carries a pouch of white marble eggs beneath her, to convey the element of protection. That's why this sculpture is one of my top 10 pieces of art, Louis Bourgois turned something that is dissliked by many people into something interesting and beautiful.