A R T   &    D E S I G N

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Art & Design has continued to promote visual literacy throughout the year. Much of our work focuses upon art from the modern period, predominantly the twentieth century. This has proved popular with our students. The contextual understanding of pupils studying the subject is ever growing, and every project contains an element of looking at and interpreting critical and contextual material. Pop Art has been well represented this year. Lower school pupils have studied Roy Lichtenstein, while some GCSE students have made 3D work inspired by Claes Oldenberg and other Pop artists.
Year 8 has had a particularly good year. Several pupils have produced work for a mini-GCSE project. Much of this has been influenced by the photomontages of David Hockney. The standard has been very high, and much of the work was on display at the Open Morning in October, 2006.

Our A2 level students have had a particularly good year. Their work has attained a very high standard and most of them show a sophisticated understanding of modern art and a high level of technical skill. They have produced a range of exciting work from portraits to Pop, from Surrealism to still life and from landscape to social and political comment. Their understanding of the concepts involved in artists’ work and their ability to adapt those principles to their own work has been inspiring. The A level exhibition was held in the Sixth Form Centre in June and was a great success. The Department sold greetings cards, which were illustrated with reproductions of our students’ work from the display.

In June, Year 10 visited the Tate Modern gallery at Bankside. This provided a valuable opportunity for these students to see “real” art up close. This should benefit their own work. Many studies were made, and this led on to some students taking part in a drawing and photography session on the South Bank in Autumn, 2006.

We anticipate a stimulating and successful time for Art & Design in the year ahead.

I add my sincere thanks to Mr Lupton, who will be reducing his commitment to one day per week in the academic year starting in September, 2006. His work in the Department has been of the highest quality, and he will continue to work with GCSE and A level students, as well as contributing to screen printing, and the use of ICT within art & design; he will also provide occasional specialist seminars for the benefit of our students.

K. W. Owens.