Brampton Manor Academy
Brampton Manor Academy was fortunate to get London based artist Matt Small in during the Summer term 2017 to work with a collection of our students. Matt Small is an Illustration graduate who is now a highly successful practicing artist. Small’s work is raw and urban and his work has developed over time to pieces which have been shown in numerous exhibtions across London. Painting directly onto found pieces of metal and wood he brings the physical elements of the city directly into his work. Each group of students who worked with artist collaborated with Matthew to create a portrait of one of the students from the school. The intention was to represent the diversity of our school community. As each of the 3 portraits were largely made up of found and salvaged items from the school environment including old prospectus’, fallen bark from trees, excess cut offs from Design technology lessons and plastic and can waste from our canteens. The final portraits exhibited in the Art Matter 2017 show demonstrate the collective effort of Matt with our very talented Key Stage 3 students. The eyes of the portraits were completed by our A-Level students. Matt’s intention was to put a new twist on the idea of the school portrait, and using the found materials from skips, canteens and classrooms within the school he also brought an awareness about the amount of waste a school can generate as part of the project. The portraits now hang within out school immortalising the 3 students who were part of the project as part of the Brampton Manor display
Sandringham Primary School
Sandringham Primary School contributed to last year’s Art Matters Exhibition by entering an array of ceramic work the children completed throughout the school year. At Sandringham, the children start playing with clay in pre-school and Nursery, sometimes impressing handprints and glazing them. In reception they have a go at thumb pots and maybe indenting marks onto surfaces which starts to make them more familiar with the material. As the children go through the school they are encouraged to make more thumb pots and tiles to their own designs before moving onto coil pots, simple sculptures and then slab building in years 4, 5 and 6.
In last year’s exhibition, Year 3 entered some large pots made up of over 30 individually made tiles which were each decorated with prints, patterns and personalised marks, before they were all scored and slipped by the children and joined together over a forming mould. Year 5 and 6 collected shapes from nature before designing a series of containers that were linked through the initial designs and shapes. As they attempted each piece, the children discovered more possibilities, adapted their ideas and became more creative and confident as a result. All the work was glazed and fired at school
