High school pupils showcased their artistic talents at an open house art exhibition.

Warwick Academy decorated its assembly hall with two years’ worth of artwork made by pupils in the International Baccalaureate Visual Arts programme earlier this month.

Maleia Howard, 17, said that she turned a series of six paintings into one large picture.

She added: “I named it Disassociation. It starts off with someone who looks normal but is holding something back.

“As the series progresses you can see that their head is slowly splitting and showing their inner emotions.”

Maleia, from Somerset, said that the piece represented anxiety and the disorganised thoughts of sufferers.

She added: “I want people to be able to see themselves in this and feel less alone.”

Maleia added that she came from a family of artists and had been interested in art since she was about three years old.

She said: “My grandmother used to paint and draw and I would try doing it when I was little.

“I would just be scratching on printer paper and stuff but she would say ‘that’s so good, you should keep at it’ and I did.”

Izrael Pearman, 17, said that much of his art was inspired by science fiction.

He added that he saw art as a way to reflect his thoughts and interests to others.

Izrael explained: “People create entire worlds based off of their imaginations and I thought I could share my own ideas and basically show people what I like to think of in my spare time.”

He added: “Ever since I was a kid, this was always the stuff that helped me make friends.

“It’s basically a common ground that makes me happy because I find it so interesting.”

Izrael, also from Somerset, said that one of his artworks showed a society rebuilding after a war to show that life continued, even after conflict.

Lexi Mulholland, 17, said that her artwork was centred on identity and personal growth.

She added that the theme of personality was best reflected in her series of paintings that linked friends to their zodiac signs.

Lexi said: “I’m really into astrology, so that’s something that I really like and it’s also something that’s a part of a person’s identity.

“I combined six different people with the symbols of their signs — so Scorpio, for example, has a scorpion tail because that’s the symbol for it.”

Lexi added she found art to be therapeutic and an “escape”.

She explained: “I know for me, when I get really into art, I kind of go into a different zone and I forget about everything else around me.”

Lexi added: “I think a lot of things that I go through in my life and that I’ve translated into my art are things that a lot of other people might go through as well, so I want people to just be able to relate to my art.”