Exploring Contemporary Art

This term many of our children have enjoyed visiting the current art exhibition at Pitzhanger Manor; the exhibition showcases the work of contemporary artists Idris Khan and Annie Morris and explores the themes of emotion, time and memory. Pupils from our art clubs enjoyed admiring and then recreating Morris’ Stack sculptures with fantastic results.

Our Year 5 classes then enjoyed welcoming staff from Pitzhanger Manor into their classrooms to learn more about the artists and how they produced their art. The children worked together to create a manifesto for the art they wanted to produce. They worked in small groups to learn similar techniques to that of the artists by laying the words from their manifesto on top of each other, the children explored different styles of writing as well as contrasting colours to make their piece of art stand out.

The following week the Year 5 classes visited Pitzhanger Manor to see the artist’s work in the gallery. After they had explored the art work, the children went on a walk through the manor house to explore more of the art throughout the house. Following this, the children became the artists, working on large pieces of fabric, incorporating all their ideas from their manifesto using words like: love, kindness, friendship, democracy, collaboration, to create their own pieces.

These pieces of fabric were then turned into sculptures, using elastic bands and newspapers. The pieces of art will shortly be displayed alongside the original art in the gallery for the children to experience. We can’t wait to see them!