Aliya is a female artist of British and Pakistani mixed heritage.

Aliya’s work is often quite personal to her, centering around memories from her life, her close friends and family, and touching on mental health. Influenced by artists such as, Paul Wright and Alice Neel, she uses her artwork as a form of communication to show care and appreciation to all the people in her life.

Working a lot with colour, Aliya often explores the power and effect of colour as a form of expression throughout her pieces. Aliya’s recent works have focused on working with acrylic paint on found materials, with recycled pieces of Amazon packages being one of her main mediums of choice. She has also worked on pieces of greyboard she has found and the occasional canvas.

With her artworks, Aliya sheds light on the idea that valued pieces of artwork can be done in an affordable and resourceful way. She believes everyone should have the ability to create art – money should not have to be a factor. Her work also has an underlying element of sustainability, re-purposing materials that otherwise would have been thrown away as well as using recyclable and biodegradable mediums. Aliya has drawn the inspirations for this concept from artists such as Garet Cadwallader and Conor Rogers.

To create her portraits, Aliya works from reference photographs. These photographs are either taken by her or sent to her by close friends or family. Capturing a candid moment, she then transforms them into a painting. Aliya prefers this technique for the curation of her artwork as when translating photograph to paint she feels she can paint the memory and personality of the person, as well as a portrait.