Past Present.

Welcome to our shows from 2020-2023.

This is a showcase of work by students in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, who graduated from 2020 to 2022.

It's all of us, together, in a digital show you curate for yourself - not pre-arranged into rooms, courses or disciplines. You do the arranging. Want to see all the red things we made? Or all the work about identity, nature or isolation? Look at what you want to, when you want to, whether it's all the illustration, all the writing, all the movies or performance. You get the idea.

This exhibition is yours for the making. Go explore.

For more information about our faculty, visit the ARU website.
Whilst Anglia Ruskin University remains committed to freedom of speech for individuals, the views and opinions included in this showcase belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Anglia Ruskin University. If you've got any concerns please contact us.

Sabine Buhain

Illustration and Animation - BA (Hons)

I'm Sabine Buhain, an animator and illustrator born in the Philippines who studied BA (Hons) Illustration & Animation at Cambridge School of Art.

You know when you’re a kid and you spend all of your time drawing pictures because your imagination’s going wild? Well, I never stopped. As a self-taught illustrator, I juggled the creative arts with my STEM-focused high school classes, balancing precariously on an academic tightrope. It wasn’t until I travelled to the UK at 17 that I got a shot at learning art for real.

I love bursts of colour, playing with whitespace, bold lines, high fantasy, surrealism, the occasional four-panel comic, and breathing life into my characters. The art I make always has a story behind it, whether it’s lighthearted and silly or deeply immersive. Now that I’ve finally finished university, I'm looking to join the UK's creative industries as an animator, illustrator or visual designer.

This showreel encompasses all of my best projects created throughout my course up until the Summer of 2021. If you’re interested in seeing the featured animations in full, please visit my website linked on my page.

Accompanied by her friends Sam and Noah, a now jaded adult Claire sits at a bar and recounts a fond day in their childhood: the day they skipped school to play video games. ‘Like It Was Yesterday’ follows their rollercoaster of a journey as elementary school kids, complete with light-hearted banter, bursts of colour, and a surrealist waltz through memory that never paints a perfect picture. This is my major project, the culmination of what I’ve learned throughout my studies.

Like It Was Yesterday’s original promotion poster. The style’s evolved a bit since then.

Production Booklet By Sabine Buhain Read the Paper

Stills from Like It Was Yesterday. Each scene uses a different colour palette carefully curated by yours truly!

Home Aquarium (2020). Created as a charity auction piece for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), with whom I collaborated last year to raise funds during the coronavirus crisis. Home Aquarium represented one of the organization’s aims to preserve and protect the marine wildlife of the Philippines. Despite the surrealist nature of the art piece, the illustration puts into perspective the reality that the world underneath the sea is so much bigger than we are alone.

Liar, Liar (2019) As of 2016 survey, 1 woman or child in the Philippines is sexually assaulted every hour. While intended as a piece of personal closure, ‘Liar, Liar’ became a powerful statement for all sexual assault victims who feel they have to hide. Shapes that flow into each other where they shouldn’t, that juxtapose unnaturally and refuse to follow the rules, ask: What is real and what isn’t? There will never be a way to illustrate this pain, but we can try to explain it.

Rear View (2020) A self-portrait painted in a different light, this illustration represents my retrospection on the past decade. While I look upon my past self with scrutiny, I ultimately have to keep driving forward for the both of us. The colour palette used is greatly inspired by 80s styles and patterns, which I chose because I observed that the decade’s bright, geometric style was making a comeback in the late 2010s.

Raindrops (2019)

Tumbleweedless (with Hannah Lane) (2019)

Making the Amphora (with Velina Garabedyan) (2020)

Are You Talking To Me? (with Molly Mayhew) (2019)