A STUDENT from Buckinghamshire New University has been one of four selected to display artwork to the world’s media in the Main Press Centre during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Deborah Mills was selected through a national competition by the Creative Campus Initiative, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, and the educational organisation Podium to commission four artists to create large scale works.

These works were to represent the Olympic mottos of faster, higher, stronger and the Paralympics’ motto, Spirit in Motion.

Deborah said her pieces focused on a competitor’s effort rather than their triumph. She added: “My children compete at both regional and national level in high jump and swimming and I witness every day the sacrifice that goes in to achieving at that level.”

Deborah used silk cord to make pieces called Stretching, Rotating, Contracting and Relaxing, which were inspired by the training principle of repeating an action over and over to gain the necessary strength and skill to maximise potential.

She said: “I thought that my concept was strong and that it represented the spirit of the Olympic motto well, but I didn’t expect it to be selected because the original brief had asked for paintings and I wasn’t proposing to paint at all, so to be selected was fantastic.”

The other students selected to display work were Sam Burford and Mario Pires Cordeiro , of Chelsea College of Art & Design at the University of the Arts; and Mehri Imani, of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, also at the University of the Arts.