Claire Partington: "The figures are based on historical portraiture. I wanted them - Young boy with his dog, Young boy at rest and Eve on the Heath - to relate to contemporary youths.

The standing boy is wearing adidas trousers and has a Staffordshire bullterrier dog, like the boys I see on the streets in London. He has daggers on his chest plate and holds a sword. There is a problem with knife crime in London amount young men, (as there has always been), but it seems to something that the media like to sensationalise.

The seated figure “at rest” has had too much to drink and is sleeping. Starlings are pulling his hair to hold up his head, like the birds in Disney's Snow White or Cinderella and a pigeon is eating his chips. He is seated in the way many young boys sit on the tube and he is wearing nike shoes."

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Claire Partington's work generally deals with narrative, symbolism, gender and status. Her interest lies in symbols and how people use them to identify with certain social groups. Her work also deals with the long European tradition of appropriation and reinterpretation of design styles, fashions and cultures.