The Beacon Art Exhibition 2024
2 May 2024
On Wednesday, we were thrilled to invite our Beacon Community to an Art Exhibition, hosted in the Spinney theatre at the Beacon. Every pupil in the school between the ages of 3 and 13 had at least one piece of work displayed, focusing on a range of different themes.
Our Nursery created art based on the theme of fairytales. This included several pigs, a wolf, a flock of little red hens, a squad of gingerbread men, a herd of billy goats gruff and some houses decorated with marshmallows and sweets – inspired by Hansel and Gretel.
Our reception pupils focused on bears as their topic creating a variety of pieces including koalas made of cut-up newspaper, pandas made of paper plates and sun bears with comically long tongues! Some boys also created their own outfits for bears to wear including some very fetching high-viz vests.
Year 1’s project was based on the painting ‘Castle and Sun’ by Paul Klee. They recreated the colourful and geometric shapes in their own work with oil pastels. During their ‘castles and monarchs’ topic, Year 2 studied the work of Andy Warhol, creating royal self-portraits inspired by Warhol’s style of bold, exciting colours. They created 3D crowns with gems and glitter to complete these fabulous works.
Year 4 studied the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), individually creating colourfully decorated skulls known as ‘calacas’, inspired by the Mexican festival. Additionally, they took inspiration from artist Christian Boltanski to each create a Day of the Dead shadow puppet, projecting these spooky shadows onto the curtain at the front of the theatre.
The pupils in Year 5 worked individually on characterful self-portraits inspired by the pop-art style of Roy Lichtenstein. They also worked in groups to create a piece of ceramic work inspired by the sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle, moulding, firing and glazing their clay to make their ceramic masterpieces. Each class produced one such piece between them.
Year 6 worked on the topic graffiti art, using spray-paints and stencils to create layered images. The pupils in Year 7 worked on several projects for the exhibition, including ink-printing using different etching techniques and drawings based on the work of artist – Phlegm. One of the largest pieces in the exhibition – a giant tiger’s face was made collaboratively using batik-wax and ink. We were also lucky to have local artist Zoe Duncan working with our Year 7s for 10 weeks last term, teaching them about printmaking and culminating in the creation of a huge print of a koi carp, assembled from individually created sections.
Year 8 focused on the idea of ‘identity’, creating self-portraits using chalk and charcoal as well as their own uniquely decorated ceramic shoes, showcasing the things important to their own identities. Additionally, the boys of 8Y came up with their own piece based on gender stereotypes, presenting two stereotypical plaster cast bodies, hollowed out with doubts and insecurities printed on the inside, such as ‘will I be treated the same?’.
Last term, some of our boys entered The Rotary Young Photographer and Artist Competitions, successfully winning prizes against over 300 entrants! These entries were positioned pride of place in the exhibition. Congratulations to Jimmy C in Year 4 and Sahan L in Year 5 who were both highly commended.
During the school day, each year group had a time slot to visit the exhibition to view their own pieces and those of their peers. Our boys were extremely proud to show their parents their artwork personally after school, and the event was a big success. Thank you to all the parents, Governors and staff who attended.
A huge thank you to the Beacon Parents’ Society for donating the display boards, which we regularly use in our exhibitions to showcase the artistic talent we have at The Beacon.
