Viewing archives for Art & Design

Two visiting artists helped QE pupils take a fresh look at familiar spaces through a project that embraced a variety of materials and techniques and got them out and about in the School grounds.

This story has been published to coincide with World Art Day – celebrated annually on 15th April. #WorldArtDay

The Year 8 project, entitled Traces, Places & Possible Futures — A Multispecies City, asked pupils to consider who and what lives alongside them, including plants, insects and other animals, and microbes.

Professional artists Abigail Hunt and Sum-Sum (Ngan-Sum) Tse-Cappi led three workshops, before the project culminated in a public exhibition of the boys’ work – and of pupils from Barnet’s Northway School and Chalgrove Primary School – at the Apthorp Gallery in North Finchley’s ArtsDepot.

Head of Art Craig Wheatley said: “This was an interactive and imaginative series of workshops, which celebrated students’ creativity and collaborative learning, while the exhibition amplified young people’s voices in conversations about future environments.”

Organised by the Art Department in collaboration with ArtsDepot, the project involved photography, construction and the use of clay and plaster during the workshops. The boys were encouraged to explore the spaces they live, learn and play in – and then reimagine them through sculpture, mapping, and collaborative making.

Through creative exploration the boys were encouraged to reflect on responsibility, care and respect for other species, and to imagine future environments that support coexistence. As well as living creatures, the project considered weather systems.

Across the linked workshops, pupils engaged with a process of observation, interpretation and construction, working with drawing, photography, casting and collage.

In Workshop 1, pupils explored their immediate environment through a multispecies lens. By exploring the area around the School, pupils were encouraged to record traces made by fauna and flora. They documented their findings through drawings, photographs, rubbings and clay moulds, which are developed into plaster tiles. Discussions introduce multispecies mapping, highlighting human routes alongside animal paths, insect highways and plant borders.

Workshop 2 focused on interpretation and design. Pupils collaborated on large-scale maps of the School and outdoor spaces, identifying how both humans and non-humans use these areas. They imagined themselves as other species, asking what those beings might need to thrive. Photographs from the first workshop were transformed into collage habitats, and pupils exchanged ‘creature postcards’ with the other participating schools, sharing design ideas.

In Workshop 3, pupils started to create ideas for building sculptural ecosystems and prototype habitats using found materials. Through these imaginative structures, they explored shelter, movement and connection for different species. Conversations around sustainability, impermanence and life cycles encouraged the boys to think critically about different environments, and to create environments to support real multispecies life. Pupils documented their work through photography and recorded stories, contributing to the final exhibition.

• Click on the thumbnails below to view the images.

Year 8 learned creative secrets behind the Harry Potter films on a magical visit to the Warner Bros studios.

During the Art department trip, boys were encouraged to draw parallels between their classwork and the professional practices they saw at the studios in Watford.

Craig Wheatley, Head of Art and Design, who organised the trip said: “The visit was a remarkable experience for Year 8, blending education with inspiration and offering a behind-the-scenes look at the artistry and innovation that goes into film production. It truly fostered a deeper appreciation for the craft and ignited the creative passions of young aspiring artists.

“Our students explored the many creative industries that bring these iconic films to life, enriching understanding of film production and inspiring their own artistic journeys.

“Through our QE Flourish co-curricular programme – and thanks to QE’s advantageous location – we can offer educational experiences like this to bring classroom subjects to life, broaden horizons and develop future-ready skills.”

The day began with a lesson specially tailored for the pupils that was led by the studios’ education art department team. They delved into topics such as set design, architectural model-making, costume creation, and character design.

After that came a tour in which pupils immersed themselves in the world of Harry Potter and saw the stage sets, enjoying the chance to examine some of the special effects deployed there.

“Many pupils recognised similarities in their own projects, such as creating concept art for dystopian landscapes and developing storyboards, underscoring the relevance of their studies in the context of the creative industry,” said Mr Wheatley.

There were rave reviews afterwards from the boys. It was, said Akhil Kotha, “a truly beneficial trip, pulling out the secrets of designing a movie, with all the complex roles and activities clearly explained, aided by the hospitable staff”.

Akhil’s Pearce House classmate, Neil Mann, said: “I learned a lot about the process of making the film sets in Harry Potter, particularly the various stages used to produce the final outcome – from carefully calculated blueprints to scaled paper structures of the set – to ensure it is absolutely perfect.”

GCSE Art students enjoyed exclusive access to a Sir Grayson Perry exhibition on a visit to a London art gallery. 

The Year 11 boys had the popular exhibition, Delusions of Grandeur, to themselves during their visit to The Wallace Collection museum. 

They then had the chance to give their own creative responses in a special workshop. 

And before leaving, the group found time to see the gallery’s famous portrait of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester – a key figure in QE’s founding in 1573. 

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This Art department trip amply demonstrates the advantages of our proximity to London, which gives our boys easy access to all the exciting opportunities that the capital presents.” 

The purpose of the trip was to explore the work of Grayson Perry, who is known especially for his ceramic vases and tapestries. The results of this exploration then informed the boys’ own work on the theme of Personal Identity.   

Arranged to mark the artist’s 65th birthday, the exhibition featured more than 40 new works. It was the largest contemporary exhibition ever held at the museum. 

Art teacher Linda Mitchell said: “We were lucky to have exclusive access to the exhibition in the morning. 

“We then had an excellent workshop, where students could respond to the work by Perry through drawing, painting, collage and print-making. 

“It was a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding day.” 

Several of the boys afterwards gave their reflections on the day:  

• Gyan Nadhavajhala praised Perry’s “handling of pre-existing images and his fusion of different media…. His combination of older, physical art with modern tools such as Photoshop drew me in and differentiated his work from others’.” 

• Akshay Jigajinni was impressed by the artist’s “inspiring” manipulation of colour and shape. “I truly felt that each splash of paint or each pen stroke evoked a different emotion.” 

• Alan Fang was also struck by the use of colour, as well as by the sheer range of work on display, from single-colour sculptures and tapestries to an extremely colourful sculpture that featured multi-coloured pins. 

• Kevin Peduru Hewa liked “the quickness and looseness of the drawings in the first room…and the 3D quality and use of materials in the second room”.  

With the visit to the exhibition and the workshop complete, that still left time for the boys to take in all The Wallace Collection’s other artworks, including the portrait of Dudley, which is attributed to Steven van der Meulen. Dated to 1560-1564, it is thought to be the earliest portrait surviving of the earl at whose request Queen Elizabeth I granted the charter for the establishment of Queen Elizabeth’s School. 
 

After its successful unveiling at last month’s Founder’s Day, plans are being drawn up to give a permanent home to a new artwork produced by every boy in the School.

The Tudor Rose Crown, a commemorative artwork produced to mark last year’s coronation of Charles III and Queen Camilla and as part of the School’s 450^th anniversary celebrations, shows the crown as it appears on QE’s logo.

It comprises some 1,305 roses – one for each pupil – with every boy having made an impression into clay that was then cast into plaster.

The artwork is currently on display in the ‘Crush Hall’ – the area in the Main Building, close to the main entrance and Reception.  It is hoped to relocate it to the Fern Building, near the Art Department, for the start of the 2024–2025 academic year, once tests to ensure the wall there can bear its weight have been completed.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This artwork is a striking visual commemoration of our 450^th anniversary, made still more remarkable by the fact that every pupil had a hand in creating it. My congratulations go to the Art department on all their work in realising this vision.”

The crown from the logo is a representation of the crown on the original royal charter for the School, which was signed by Elizabeth I on 24th March 1573.

Art teacher Jeanne Nicodemus said: “Year 7 students painted the roses individually and meticulously.”

Year 12 boys then cast additional roses in red and green resin to represent the jewels in the crown.

The artwork is mounted on English oak, representing the strength and endurance of both the monarchy and the School.

The choice of wood also alludes to And Be It Known – the anthem commissioned for the School’s thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey last year, in which international composer Howard Goodall compares QE to an oak, drawing its strength ‘from ancient roots spread deep and wide’.

One further allusion is to the 49 ceramic poppies mounted high in the School’s entrance hall. These were taken from the 2014 art installation at the Tower of London commemorating the centenary of the start of the First World War.

The poppies were bought for QE by the Trustees to the Foundation of the Schools of Queen Elizabeth using funds from a bequest from the late Dennis Nelms (OE 1934–1941) and his wife, Muriel. The number represents one flower for every OE who died in 1914–18, together with one in memory of Mr Nelm’s brother, Gordon (OE 1927-1932), who died in the Second World War.

• The making of the Tudor Rose Crown: click on the thumbnails below to view the images.

QE’s pupil-run arts magazine, The Arabella, looks both to the past and the future in a special edition for the School’s 450^th anniversary year.

The 44-page publication features 26 pieces of poetry, prose, and art, many of them inspired by its anniversary-related theme, How did we get here? The approach, looking both backward and forward, mirrors that of the School’s anniversary celebrations on Founder’s Day which included a display of the School’s 1573 Royal Charter alongside the burying of a time capsule intended for the pupils of 2073, when QE will mark its 500th anniversary. Work on the magazine began last academic year, but it has only now been published.

Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) Crispin Bonham-Carter said: “The ninth edition of The Arabella has been worth the wait: with its expanded contents and an eclectic mix of topics and styles, it is a great demonstration of the fruits of free-thinking scholarship and academic curiosity.”

The magazine includes contributions from boys throughout the School, although boys from the current Years 8 and 9 feature especially heavily.

In his introduction, one of the editors, Chanakya Seetharam, of Year 12, addresses his fellow QE pupils: “Just as the [450^th anniversary thanksgiving] service at Westminster Abbey in the Spring Term so well captured, this is as much cause to look back with an inquisitive eye into the past as to look forward to the future. It is this spirit of investigation that is the kernel of this edition, and which was so well taken up by you….

“You are what keeps The Arabella alive. This is a magazine by you and for you. We hope you will find all of the work here thoroughly insightful, interesting, and enjoyable, and here’s to a great next edition!”

The poetry section is highly varied, with contributions ranging from Year 9 boy Yingqiao Zhao’s piece about the moon – which is in the shape of a crescent and has key words picked out in different colours – to the nine-stanza rhyming French poem, La Mort de L’Ancien, composed by Year 13’s Aayush Backory. The poetry section closes with Nikhil Francine, of Year 9, addressing the anniversary directly with a poem entitled Thriving from Ancient Roots – the School’s slogan for the anniversary year.

The creative writing pages included Year 9 pupil Raaghav Dhanasekaran predicting a dystopian future amid huge hurricanes caused by climate change.

The music writing section on the other hand looks mostly to the past, from Nikhil Francine’s essay on A brief history of song to Moneshan Rathaparan and Eshwara Masina, both of Year 8, jointly exploring The Enduring Influence of Classical and Baroque Music on Contemporary Culture.

Year 12 student Akheel Kale, from the editorial team, praises the quality of Year 13 pupil Ashish Yeruva’s essay on Justice for Ukraine: How to Put Russian Leaders on Trial Using International Law. Ashish’s contribution had inspired the team to open a current affairs section in the magazine and to invite further such submissions in the future, Akheel says.

Similarly, the magazine has a new section on Science, featuring Year 10 boy Zain Syed’s submission of an extensive flow chart setting out A Natural History of the Earth.

Interspersed throughout The Arabella are artworks exploring themes including Expressive Heads, Distortion and Identity; Dystopian Landscape; and Art Inspired by Music. Shown in this news story, from top to bottom, are:

• Expressive Heads, Distortion and Identity, by Sushan Naresh, Year 10 (main image)
• Dystopian Landscape, by Krishav Sundar Rajan, Year 9
• Art Inspired by Music, by Galinghan Balamurugan, Year 8
• Expressive Heads, Distortion and Identity, by Ayush Saha, Year 10

The magazine is named after Arabella Stuart, a descendant of Henry VII and sixth in line to the throne, who fell foul of King James I when in 1610 she secretly married another potential heir to the throne, William Seymore. Her husband was sent to the Tower of London, while Arabella was committed to the care of the Bishop of Durham, but fell ill in Barnet en route. She stayed for some months at the home of QE Governor Thomas Conyers, her spiritual needs attended to by another Governor, Rev Matthias Milward, who was subsequently appointed Master (Headmaster) of the School.

• For anyone with access to the School’s eQE portal, The Arabella is available to read here.

Year 9’s Kelvin Chen will see his work displayed on billboards in London ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28) starting next month after achieving success in a national art competition.

His colourful depiction of young people taking action to create a greener planet – entitled Friends of the Earth – took third place in the Climate Art Prize contest organised by Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute.

As well as the billboard display and £250 in cash, Kelvin’s prize will include seeing his piece alongside a mural in Nine Elms, close to the newly revamped Battersea Power station, that will also include the institute’s 9 things you can do about climate change.

Head of Art Craig Wheatley said: “My congratulations go to Kelvin, who followed the suggestion of my colleague, Jeanne Nicodemus, to enter and was then one of only nine winners and runners-up out of more than 1,000 entries.”

For the biennial competition, the institute, which is a research centre for climate change and the environment, challenged entrants aged 11-25 to create bold designs for outdoor public murals focused on the solutions needed to tackle the climate crisis.

For inspiration, they could look to the institute’s Climate Action Hub’s suggestions for positive actions everyone can take to reduce their impact on the planet, including reducing energy use and bills, green travel, protecting nature and eating less meat and dairy. Young people were asked to interpret these themes and focus on at least one of them when depicting their visions of a greener, cleaner, cooler future world.

The winning entries in each category will become public murals across the UK – in Glasgow, Coventry and West Norwood in London – painted by professional artists.

In his submission, Kelvin, whose third place was in the 11–14 age category, said that his piece of art has “a deep meaning behind it symbolising the actions of many people who have a passion for protecting and nurturing the planet.

“Some of the actions are shown in this drawing,” he wrote. “The left person is painting the world green, showing afforestation and protecting the world’s green spaces; the person in the middle, placing some wind turbines into the Earth, a form of renewable energy; and the person on the right is taking some of the rubbish thrown into the ocean out of the Earth’s waters.”

Speaking about his motivation to participate in the competition, Kelvin said: “I have a passion for tackling climate change and my drawing aims to inspire people to act. I think the environment should be a higher priority for the government, but there are also things we can all do to help the world.

“I’m also always up for a competition. I was excited when I received the email to say I had been chosen in third place.”

Kelvin is pictured receiving a prize at July’s QE Junior Awards ceremony from guest of honour Sunil Tailor (OE 1999–2006). As for the £250 prize money… “I’ve given it to my parents” he said.