Now she's taken over a wall of the Ballarat Art Gallery in the 2021 Next Gen exhibition of promising young artists from schools in regional Victoria.

"When I went down the other week, it was quite surreal to see it on a wall instead of at home," Miss Sleep said.

The Horsham College student was taken aback by how big her work seemed in comparison to those around it as it takes pride of place during the exhibition.

"A lot of the works around it are smaller and seeing it, it was sort of like 'oh right'," she said.

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The piece, drawn with coloured pencils, depicts bright yellow caution tapes tightly wrapped around the human form, with insults and slurs written on the tape.

Miss Sleep says the piece was about the impact of social media on an individual.

"At the start of the year I decided I would do barriers within identity, looking at why people act differently in various scenarios. Throughout the studio process I refined my idea, looking specifically at society and social media," she said.

The work was something new for Miss Sleep, who said it was "probably not something I'd say or do, but the meaning behind it is [her] beliefs".

"I talked it over with my parents and Ms King [Horsham College art teacher] and I said well, this is my idea and at the time everyone was like yeah, yeah, that's fine, go for it'," Miss Sleep said.

"But then I started the piece at home and my parents looked at me and said 'I did bit expect that'.

"They were probably a bit shocked."

Miss Sleep said one of the appeals of this type of artistic expression was freedom and it's relative anonymity.

"In a sense it's anonymous, you don't have to put a face to the name or anything, you can just put it out there," she said.

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"No-one can recognise you as that person, you can just subtly put your opinion out there, which I prefer."

Miss Sleep said she enjoys "art with a meaning the most".

"I find it interesting when there's a meaning behind it," she said, citing CJ Hendry.as her favourite artist.

"Personally my favourite artist was She's a hyper realistic artist who likes to be controversial at the same time. I do enjoy that," she said.

As her work sits in the Next Gen exhibition, Miss Sleep said she is not working on any current projects.

"School's taking up a lot of time at the moment," she said, although she will be still be flexing her creative muscles in design for her visual communication class.

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As for her favourite medium, Miss Sleep says she usually works in graphite and coloured pencils, but she also likes working with watercolour and paint.

"I've always enjoyed drawing. I'd say I would have been drawing from a very young age," she said.

"I chose [studio art] solely because it was something I enjoy, and I'd rather do something I enjoy than put pressure on something I don't.

However, Miss Sleep said she has no current plans to pursue a career in art, and will just keep being artistic on her own terms.

"At the moment I don't plan on doing anything in art, I just want to be able to continue to draw."

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