December’s trip to the Royal Academy and Tate Britain gave our Lower Sixth students a chance to see works by two key contemporary artists.
At this point in their studies, our A Level artists are beginning an independent project which we guide them through and which is worth 60 per cent of their overall mark. The gallery visit helped students kick start their project by providing inspiration on how working artists develop and present their work.
At the Royal Academy we saw the huge canvases of Kerry James Marshall which reflect on his life as a black man growing up in America. His paintings are often three metres by 5 metres, something akin to the chapels of times gone by and represent social issues in a modern and accessible way. The scale of the exhibition took up the whole ground floor of the RA to accommodate the size of the paintings and made a huge impact on our students.
At Tate Britain we saw the work of renowned photographer Lee Miller to tie in with the introduction to photography that students have just received at School. By contrast to Marshall, the works on display here were smaller in size but no less historically significant. Students also reflected on Miller’s position as a woman and that her most well known images were in fashion and war photography, more often associated with male photographers.
Both artists’ work are brilliant examples for the A Level students to experience and learn from.
