Untold Stories — bcu illustration 2026

Untold Stories - BCU Illustration Summer Project 2026

Every one of us carries a story that hasn’t been told yet. This summer, Level 5 and Level 6 Illustration students set out to find one and give it a picture.

The stories on these walls are wonderfully varied. Some come from family kitchens, handed-down belongings, grandparents, pets and long goodbyes. Some come from gigs, arcades, train stations and passport stamps. Others travel into fairytale, folklore and the supernatural, or sit closer to home, reflecting honestly on the body, the mind and the pressure of finding where you belong. There is guilt, joy, nostalgia and anxiety about the future, and a fair amount of humour along the way.

Each student has found their own way of telling their story. Some are funny, some are personal, some are a bit strange, and all of them are worth a closer look.

Scan the code to read the stories behind the work.

James Mclaughlan - It's a continuation of my last project of my first year at uni. It's about expressing yourself through an already diverse subculture.

Aaliyah Matthews This piece was inspired by a night out my partner and I had at a retro arcade. We had no idea what machines were going to be inside and were so excited to see Guitar Hero there. We hogged the machine for as long as possible and felt like we were performing live, and I tried to capture that moment we had together.

Xanthe Hancox - Over the summer I spent a few days helping my Nan bake her black cake, which is a traditional Jamaican cake, but no one in my family knows my Nan’s recipe (except me now). My auntie made a joke about saving her the bowl so she could lick it and feel like a child again, and that’s how I came up with this piece.

Kye Haden - I illustrated the story made by my friends and me whilst we played Dungeons & Dragons, to showcase their characters while hinting at their individual stories. These characters are in a fantasy/horror-based campaign, full of ghosts, monsters and the supernatural. I found the inspiration for the composition in horror comics and graphic novels.

Lyla Edwards-Wells 1: This piece represents the feeling of being perceived by the people around you, feeling as though you're put in the spotlight and feeling like you are undeserving of that spotlight / feeling put somewhere you feel you don't belong.

Magenta Tombs I chose to illustrate a series of classic fairytales like Hansel and Gretel because I feel like the stories are being lost with every generation. Children today may be unfamiliar with these tales and I wanted to reintroduce them through my illustrations. The Brothers Grimm fairytales tend to have dark themes and moral lessons, so this could be another element of the “Untold Story”.

Missy Gordon The story behind my illustration follows the journey of a taxidermy cat that I photographed on a recent visit to the Thinktank museum, imagining its story and life. The young, abandoned kitten is found by a witch, and he quickly becomes her apprentice, helper, and best friend.

Talia Smith - A trio of cats traverse the lands to retrieve the jewels that belong to the Princess. They distract the fearsome dragon cat with a laser from the unicat’s horn and bamboozle the wizard with her own potions to claim the reward. They celebrate their victory in the royal palace with a mountain of catnip!

Charlotte Hill - A study of existential nihilism - the idea that there is no inherent meaning or purpose to human existence. We live, we die, and eventually nature takes everything back.

Fardus - This is about my summer holiday

Ayr Emily Roberts.- A little abstract composition with references taken from my trip to northern France. Exploring made me wonder about why the architects designed things the way they did, and well, I guess we’ll never know :)

Daisy Beach This illustration is a celebration of sisterhood and shared roots. Despite leading such separate and different lives, the bond we have remains unbreakable.

Vivien Bladea - The fairy who dances and takes care of animals, specifically farm animals

Saint Paisios was a Greek Orthodox monk known for his extraordinary selflessness, compassion and love for others. In one instance, overwhelmed by the belief that God’s love extends even to those who reject him, he spent two weeks fasting and continuously praying, not for himself or anyone he was acquainted with, but rather for Satan, in the hopes that even the devil could be forgiven and feel the same love that he felt from God.

Ella Colwell - OCD is a debilitating mental illness that is often misrepresented and fetishised in popular culture. Repetitive and tiring actions are performed not out of a want to do them, but as a way to quell obsessive and intrusive thoughts. These intrusive thoughts don’t go away no matter what you do, and in spite of them being not real and ephemeral, you cannot help but dwell on them over and over and over again. It’s like having a predator that lives in your head, feeding off your deepest insecurities and fears like a parasite.

Amy Jasper - This is a short comic strip of a real life experience I had at work when asking a customer for ID to purchase an age restricted product. He was not in fact, 25.

Natalia Krupa - This piece was to represent how we have untold stories from small things that mean a lot to us, such as a gift that my sister gave me, which was a keychain. One day, walking to school, it fell from my bag. An untold story was told in how many possible situations could have happened to the keychain once it fell, and how it can be so easy to lose things that we once cherished.

Jamie Holden ‘Vampires, Werewolves & Zombies’, the book I begged my mom to buy me as a kid on a family day out, and continued to obsess over the art of for the rest of my life. Thanks mom!

Elissa Kainth In the surrounding darkness, a hand reaches out to the tiefling warlock. Dread fills his mind as he hears the familiar voice of his patron reaching out to him in his dream.

Will Weir I never met my Great Uncle Colin, and the summer before I came to university he passed away. I was given many of his things to fill my first flat in September. I created this illustration exploring how a person's identity can persist through their belongings, and the journey I have had learning about my Uncle through what he left behind.

Alfie Mills Personal growth and catharsis

Sarah Pestridge Is humanity engaging naturally or artificially?

Kyle Lord Inspired by 2000s survival horror

Jack Barwell “My Ideas Come Alive at Night”. A short narrative expressed through words and shapes.

Izzy Peters My Untold Story is about a fan event I attended for the band Placebo in March 2026. The band asked for fans to submit any fan content or memorabilia to celebrate their 30th anniversary, and as thanks, under 100 fans would be selected to attend a secret event. I submitted some fan art and was luckily chosen! This artwork details my hectic day as I travelled to London, found the meeting place, and entered a cinema room where Stefan (1/2 of the band) thanked us for our submissions and revealed that this event was a blindfolded listening party for their new album ('Placebo RE:CREATED') 3 months before its release. I want to share this untold story because it was such a crazy, one-of-a-kind experience that was very intense and emotional. It helped me make connections with fellow Placebo fans and artists, and knowing that my favourite band enjoyed my artwork has helped build confidence in my abilities.

Crystal Danks My house was built in the 30s, and I found toy planes from that era while digging in my garden. The son of the original family left them outside while playing and never came back, so they got buried over decades.

Sophia Reynolds Lino print artwork done in red, blue and green ink, final design scanned and manipulated in Procreate. The narrative behind this piece is how often the cleanliness of rats is overlooked. Since having three pet rats, who are the subject of the work, I’ve been asked many times why I would own them as they are dirty and gross, which isn’t true as they spend half of their little lives cleaning themselves! So I depicted them doing just that, having a lovely spa day.

Katie Faulkner - A fun twist on Pinocchio. Punks aren't as scary as you think!

Emma Malin 'Is This What You Wanted?' explores the untold experience of the afterlife and the uncertainty of what lies ahead. This piece depicts a ghostly figure standing at the edge of a forest and was made using gouache, pencil and digital mediums.

Daniela Teles Rendon The painting is about bittersweet goodbyes. It is about the excitement of going somewhere new, and the sadness of leaving loved ones behind. In my family, we cherish all the pictures we take as we can't always be together to experience things together, so the camera as a frame is my way of representing my family and the way we communicate and show we care, no matter the distance or time we spend apart. The moment illustrated is of me saying goodbye to my mom when I left Venezuela to come to England.

Keila Tavares A fun childhood memory of a birthday party being ruined by a rainstorm, but still finding a sense of joy despite it.

Bones Cunnington - Trying to connect your mind to your body? All you need to do is follow the hyperlink, even if they're not real. A piece about not feeling connected to yourself and looking for comfort in things that aren't human.

Izzy Turner - My work portrays the hidden stories of people and animals at London Euston through rough ink sketches drawn live which were then digitally edited and coloured. The composition of my design represents the chaos and hubbub of a busy station at commuting time, a universal representation of the Human experience.

Leah Attah - Leah Attah When I was twelve I got upset with a friend of mine and destroyed her glasses to get back at her. She moved schools at the end of that year so I was never able to confess. I made this piece with that guilt in mind, using the orange that I painted the lenses as a motif.

Kate Gipp - An interpretation of different narratives within a game of poker, shown through slang referring to different types of players as animals.

Cat Cloonan I recently found out I had stage 4 endometriosis and had major surgery. My entire pelvis was fused together with scar tissue, and each stitch and line is representative of where they found the disease in my body. I complained of symptoms for years but was repeatedly gaslit to think I was imagining things. This is a fairly standard experience for people with endometriosis, as the current diagnostic wait time in the UK is 9 years on average. Every sentence in the background of this image is a real news story.

Jonny Norbury My cat lived on the streets before we adopted him, but was incredibly sweet with humans. This is an illustration of what his life may have been like, and how I imagine he dreamed of the life of laziness he eventually found.

Kate Wall An oil painting refined digitally, depicting how people are being consumed by AI.

Jacob Leek The journey into heavy metal and downloading the music.

Amy Hilton Inspired by the stamps on my old passport, I made this illustration to narrate the places I have travelled to in recent years and the memories made. I created this piece using a combination of hand-drawn elements and collages formed from my own photos/scans of my old passport.

Zeruiah Thompson - This art piece is part of a sequential story demonstrating a hybrid wingless ant-wasp that is being seduced and corrupted by the evil faces of the flowers, which will then nourish the sunflower to turn into poisonous mushrooms. For this project I took inspiration from my personal practice of pen work and references from nature. This is because I think that creativity can be curated from anything that we consume in reality. Whilst it is crucial to embrace the beauty of nature, nature also possesses a consciousness of pertaining to evil to survive. Taking inspiration from octopus tentacles, human flesh, arteries, veins, bees, ants, and butterflies, I wanted to combine these elements to create something unrealistic, weird, and somewhat disturbing to look at and interpret. That is the purpose of this sequence: to make the viewer confused by what they see so they are forced to analyse their own interpretations.

Boo Carter This illustration represents the untold story of the future. Over the summer there were a lot of changes for me and my life. I moved in with my partner, I changed jobs, I lost some people but also gained new friendships. Going through all these changes and transitions, I was filled with anxiety. Change is hard because the future is so uncertain and can be really scary. I was scared to change jobs because what if I wasn’t good at sales? I was scared to move house because I'd never paid my own bills before, and I was scared to lose people because what could life be without them? But ultimately these changes had to happen for me to grow and move forward (even if I was scared of the outcome), and I’m really happy. Everything turned out great and I’m really looking forward to the rest the future has to offer. Even though I can’t see into the future, I’m looking forward.

Aleks Barnas Tiny cocktails for tiny people

Rebecca Browning “Places I’ve travelled to” is a playful, pink themed illustration inspired by travel stickers on a suitcase. Featuring destinations such as: Italy, Hollywood, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. Each illustrated location tells a small part of my travel story, creating a personal collection of experiences and memories.

Javine Nsongo The Moon's Diary is about the Moon quietly observing the everyday lives of the people below, capturing moments of friendship, family, creativity, self-expression and joy. Each scene becomes a small entry in the Moon's diary, showing how ordinary moments can hold personal meaning.

Daisy Brierley This piece is based on neurodivergent masking. Using my chosen colours and a mirror, I have expressed how masking looks compared to how it feels. On the outside a person can appear confident as well as social, whereas in reality they are feeling uneasy, not wanting judgement, so they use masking as a way to "blend in" with neurotypicals whilst upholding social standards.

Tiana Clarke I wanted to create a piece based on the intense heatwave during the summer break: the reliance on fans in particular since they were a must-have and were sold out at all the local stores.

Conan Wright - The last thing I remember before the anaesthesia kicked in when I had surgery this summer. I didn't know how long it would take as they didn't get me to count down from 10 like they do in movies.

Wolfe Morgan Dancing in the Red Room of the Minneapolis Institute of Art with my boyfriend. Dancing with us are the ghosts of past queer couples who would not have been allowed to be themselves and dance with the one they loved like we are able to today.

Chanel Woodman Within my work, I analysed the actions of my cats and how to communicate their input of life accurately through creative outputs. My final piece captures their unpredictable behaviour through expression, imagery, colour, and form.

Blake Cash A drawing depicting my late dog, Rio, who once randomly buried my Papa's (Grandad's) wallet in the back garden. He cancelled all of his accounts. It took hours to find it. We do not know why Rio did this, and my Papa keeps an AirTag in his wallet post-incident. (I still think Rio did no wrong.)

Abbie Mathers A digital watercolour piece, exploring the narrative of a beach sunset. This piece is telling the story of a personal memory, reminiscing about watching the sunset on the beach wall that I grew up visiting with my grandparents.

N.E Whenever I see someone with a cool style, who looks fun to talk to, or who has merch of my favourite shows, I tend to overthink what will happen if I do or don’t talk to them. I recently made a few new friends by finally talking to them on the bus, and they were super sweet! This artwork depicts my original characters, Sou and Ri, where Sou is overthinking like I tend to, the exaggerated outcome being that had they never become friends, the world would’ve been doomed - one small thing sparked a large butterfly effect response.

Imogen Gilbert I created this illustration after a trip to the aquarium.

Nick Yates - An illustration narrating my experience with chronic nightmares about teeth as well as physically chipping my tooth in a skateboarding accident.

Thomas Barlow While driving down the motorway in the countryside to go on holiday, our car suddenly broke down in the outside lane.

Jay A world where humans bio-engineer creatures to fight for them.

Shantae Campbell In the bustling city of Birmingham, Shantae, a vibrant teenager with a keen eye for fashion and a love for grime music, found herself at a crossroads. Her parents, first-generation immigrants from Jamaica, had always instilled in her a deep appreciation for their heritage, but Shantae often felt a disconnect. At school, her friends, a diverse mix of backgrounds, celebrated their own cultures, and Shantae yearned to truly understand what it meant to be both Black British and Jamaican. One summer, her grandmother, Nan, arrived from Jamaica for an extended visit. Nan, with her infectious laugh and stories that wove through generations, became Shantae's personal guide. They spent hours in the kitchen as Nan taught her traditional recipes and shared tales of her youth in Jamaica, and how, funnily enough, she grew up alongside the infamous Bob Marley in her Jamaican hometown. Shantae learned about the island's rich history, its struggles, and its triumphs, and in each story, she found a piece of herself. Later on, whilst the Bob Marley classic "One Love" was playing in the background, Shantae was recollecting her day and she thought to herself, why not write a poem of all the stories, tales and fables told to her by her Nan? And so she did. Shantae's poem reads, "Trench Town dust and a lonely crate, Strumming out rhythms to challenge fate. The world was silent, the stars grew dim, A melody rising from deep within. 'Better to die fighting for freedom,' she sighed, With the weight of the struggle she carried inside. She hummed for the streets, for the pulse of the night, Turning the shadows to flickers of light. She left the song there, a secret unsigned, A gift for the people she’d left far behind. Not for the fame or the records they spin, But for the soul of the fight she was in."