The Department of Art

TheArt & Design department have had a hectic and difficult year, as with everyone, the pandemic has brought a series of challenges but for the students in Art & Design and the staff delivering the content it has been particularly tricky; limited access to materials and equipment, delivery outside of the Art studios, students working with whatever they can get their hands on at home, trying to deliver practical hands-on tasks via teams and video etc.. But, the resilience, determination and ingenuity displayed by the students engaging with the subject has been a huge bonus for us and represents the very best qualities we should aspire to for all of our Olavians and in many ways makes the quality of work produced even more special. We have had Pop Art periodic table posters, digital Art & Design workshops developed for students by students, Pop-Up interactive maps of personal spaces, students painting with food and making sculptures out of recycling as well as some outstanding work in more traditional formats. Please find attached two very personal works created by our students this year, the first is a response to the Covid pandemic by Samuel Rayner in Year 11 inspired by the work of Basquiat and the second is a much softer reflection on her family by Hannah Wallis.

As spring gave way to summer we experienced a real mixture of emotions, excited to have our students back and working in the studios and to see the amazing work our exam groups had been doing at home and hopeful for the future but also tinged with sadness in the knowledge that again we would not be able to hold our end of your showcase exhibition. It is only in its absence thar we truly realise the importance and impact it has on the morale and spirits of the students as well as providing a suitable culmination for the course and a celebration of their hard work. Just before half-term we also wished Ms. Farr the very best as she departed on maternity leave and at the same time welcomed Ms. Ahmad to replace her, full of enthusiasm and bringing a new perspective on the Arts and especially adept with illustration she has quickly settled into the Olave’s community. Results at GCSE and A level have been excellent again with some students managing to exceed their challenge grades despite the difficulties and we continue to develop and work on our GCSE uptake.

One of the unfortunate side-effects of the restrictions within school was our inability to build on our Creative Careers focused visits by external speakers and whilst our numbers have balanced a bit more at GCSE we would love to see more students opt to continue with us as they progress through the school. We hope that this year will enable us to once again spread our wings a bit more, get the students out on more visits to galleries, exhibitions and creative careers trips and, fingers crossed, hold our annual exhibition at which you can experience the work for yourselves.

Alex Clark Head of Art

Art project

Congratulations to Year 13 student, Yasir Hafeez, who has completed an A-Z of wellbeing cards as part of his A-Level Art project in which he selected ‘Mind’ as a client.

Students’ Work