London-based artist Daniela Attard (also known as ‘iella’) is running her fifth solo exhibition Everyday People at the Christine X Curated art gallery, Sliema, until April 29.

Attard will be showcasing 15 years’ worth of life drawings from live art sessions she attended since she was 18, first at the Malta Society of the Arts’ evening sessions and later at the vibrant life drawing scene of London.

Live drawing sessions are typically collective, with art students sitting at their easels in a semi-circular formation, facing a nude model who strikes a pose on a dramatically lit platform. The artists are tasked with rendering the figure before them in black and white on a standard-size sheet of paper.

Attard’s drawings and other sketches are rendered from an illustrator’s stylistic approach.

10-minute sketch of female nude from behind. Photos: courtesy of the artist

Female nudes drawn at Australia life-class session.

Male model.

From portraits to nudes, each piece showcases the unique joy of life drawing as a discipline but also as a means of building creative muscle memory for more significant projects and illustration pieces.

Reference is also given to the people she has drawn over the years and hence the title of the exhibition Everyday People, where models offer so much by becoming the subjects of her work, in various forms and sizes.

This exhibition of life drawings will open from April 13 to 29 at Christine X Curated (at Christine X Art Gallery) in Tigné street (corner with Hughes Hallet Street), Sliema, opening daily from Monday to Saturday 10am to 1pm and 4 to 7pm or by appointment.