Art News and Gallery

On Wednesday 18th November Mark Leckey - winner of the prestigious Turner Prize 2008 came to Grey Coat Art Department to give a talk about his work.  We had a great turn out with over 30 GCSE and A level students attending. Mark was very down to earth and shared his experiences of how he became interested in Art.  He also showed the students some of his video pieces which featured in the Turner Prize exhibition. Below is some information from the Tate Gallery website about the Turner Prize.

"The Turner Prize is a contemporary art award that was set up in 1984 to celebrate new developments in contemporary art. The prize is awarded each year to 'a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding'. 

Nominations are invited each year, and the prize is judged by an independent jury that changes annually. The four shortlisted artists present works in a show normally held at Tate Britain before the winner is announced in December. Artists are not judged on their show at Tate. The decision is based on the work they were nominated for.

Over the recent decades the Turner Prize has played a significant role in provoking debate about visual art and the growing public interest in contemporary British art in particular, and has become widely recognised as one of the most important and prestigious awards for the visual arts in Europe.

The summer term was a very busy one for the Art department. We were really excited to be able to offer 15 Yr 7, 8 and 9 students workshops with textile Artist Yemi Awosile. This project was set up by the Royal College of Art ‘Reachout RCA’ scheme. Yemi came to Grey Coat and ran 5 workshops on Monday afternoons in June and July on the theme of ‘Making something beautiful out of something ordinary’. Students explored ways of creating patterns for textile designs relating to different things they observed and photographed in the garden at St Andrews.

They had opportunities to work with many different materials, in particular cork, Yemi’s signature material. Of most value was the opportunity to learn about how an artist thinks and the journey they go on when developing and realising ideas for a piece of Artwork. The work of the students will be displayed later this year in an exhibition at the Royal College of Art. 

Well done to Geraldine Crowe and Eleanor Armstrong in 8G who had work selected for exhibition at the Mardi Gras Exhibition at the SW1 Gallery in Cardinal Walk, Victoria in July. This was part of the Southwest Fest, an annual showcase of work from the local community.

Over the summer Rachel Clarke, Posola Karunwi and Georgina Corrie attended a summer school for gifted and talented students in August at the National Portrait Gallery. They made work based on the theme of self portraiture and worked in a variety of media, culminating in an exhibition of their work at the NPG on Friday 28th of August.

As an Art department in a central London school we are really lucky to be offered so many opportunities and to be able to make links with many different galleries and museums. Another recent connection has been with the Institute of Contemporary Art on the Mall. 

In July, Ashley Ekeh, Madeleine O’Keefe, Josie Petrie and Bethany Lees went along to the ICA to take part in their new ‘Chitchat’ project alongside Paddington Academy.  The students had to prepare a presentation of the work they had done in Art this year and the students spoke about their Artwork.In particular the education staff at the ICA were very impressed with Bethany Lee’s presentation. She had prepared a powerpoint and spoke really confidently about the wonderful work she had done in Miss Prince’s class. The ICA were so impressed with the students that they have invited them to become involved permanently with their youth forum – a discussion group for young people in the ICA’s catchment area. The girls were really enthusiastic about taking part in this.

We would like to congratulate our GCSE and A level students on their fantastic exam results and we wish those going off to do Art foundation course the best of luck for the future.

Please click on one of the following links for any other news and gallery:

Foundation Art Exhibition 2008 (November 2008)
A level 2008 Coursework Gallery (July 2008)
GCSE 2008 Art Gallery (July 2008)
ALevel Art Exhibition (June 2008)
Royal Society of British Artists selects work of GCH student for its annual exhibition (May 2008)
Postgraduate Artist visits Grey Coat Art students (April 2008)
Art Trip to New York (February 2008)
Foundation Art Exhibition (November 2007)
Gifted and Talented Art students exhibit at the Prince's Drawing School (June 2007)
GCSE Art Coursework Gallery (June 2007)
'Young at Art' / HeART project (May 2007)