Exhibition and Awards Evening | 2018

As it is every year, our A2 students exhibition has been absolutely incredible. It was an ambitious task, including an interactive mining experience, a giant staircase, and a lino printed car door, but despite this being such a mammoth task the exhibition was put up in record time due to the sheer hard work and effort made by all of our students. The day of the exhibition was truly special, we showed local schools around and had a beautiful evening of awards, nibbles and the company of our lovely students and their friends and family. We have had so many comments about how impressive, professional and ambitious the exhibition looked, and how truly talented our students are. We of course absolutely agree! It has been amazing getting to know you all and we are sad to see you go, you will be missed!

We have also put together a video of us putting up the exhibition and footage from the day if you would like to check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeZRAqfsXjY

Royal Academy A Level Summer Online Exhibition | 2018

This year we had 12 students submit artwork to the Royal Academy A-Level Summer Exhibition. This is a prestigious exhibition that receives over 2,000 submissions, and artwork chosen is featured on the Royal Academy website. The deadline to enter was on the 11th of May, and we encouraged all our students to submit as many pieces as they wanted.

We then received some news when the exhibition opened on the 12th of June....

Chosen from over 2,000 submissions, Maddie Noble’s piece ‘Fagility and Decay’ was chosen to be exhibited in the online gallery, and Elisa Hurley’s ‘Safety Blanket’ was one of 19 commended works shortlisted by the judges. Well done!! This is a huge honour and a fantastic accomplishment!

Madeline Noble

'Fagility and Decay'
'I gathered inspiration from my own experiences with mental health as well as from Dutch still-life paintings that focus on deterioration of physical substances. The mind is extremely temperamental and can deteriorate very quickly, which I have portrayed by incorporating decay in my portraiture.'

Elisa Hurley

'Safety Blanket'
'I interpreted the appearance of people hiding away in fear behind this protection barrier. This is the reason for me to recreate the window that acts like a safety blanket to take the impact of the destruction instead of damaging the freedom that people have. I chose to incorporate a large piece of fabric coated in plaster to represent a curtain that is set in place to eliminate the destruction from reaching into people's lives. As I have worked with plaster, it is a substance which can be broken easily. This represents the hope that people had when it came to them hoping that they would have been able to escape.'

This story was also covered by the Rotherham Advertiser, who came in to photograph Maddie and Elisa with their work on the exhibition evening as well as a group picture of all the students that had attended:

https://www.rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk/leisure/view,fear-and-decay-impress-art-critics_27627.htm

Catcliffe Primary Visit and Lino Workshop

On the 7th of June we made a visit to Catcliffe Primary School to show the Y6 students the wondrous technique that is lino printing. With us came Ashleigh Lofthouse, Nicole Nixon, Bushra Mahmood, Laura Turner and Katie Hamilton-Midlane who kindly volunteered to join us and help out. We decided to create two unique wall hangings, and to do this we asked the students to tell us what art meant to them, and the word they chose could be carved, printed and then attached to the fabric surrounding our own 'We need art because it is...' lino prints. These wonderfully enthusiastic students came up with some brilliant words to describe why art is important; 'Messy', 'Unique', 'Freaky', 'Inspirational' and so many more! We gave them the choice of freehand or using letter stencils to draw their word, but they didn't just leave it there! We had students taking initiative and including all sorts of other decorations like smiley faces, flowers, borders and my personal favourite... '#art#'.

Once these were traced on, we gave them a quick demonstration on how to use the lino cutters, and within no time at all they were loving it! Thankfully we only had about 5 lino cutter injuries... but even then, as one of the pupils remarked, "it was worth the cut". We had some wonderful comments from the class about how lino was their new favourite way of making art and they wanted to do it at home, how they wanted to be artists when they were older, and just generally all saying they were really enjoying the experience. 

And their ambition didn't stop at just drawing! As soon as we got the inks out we had pupils asking if they could make their prints "ombre", mixing up a variety of colours, and the most popular amongst everyone seemed to be rainbow striped prints! We asked the class to do one print on paper that they could take home with them, and two on fabric for us to put on each wall hanging. 

By the end our hangings were looking absolutely fabulous! Laura, Ashleigh, Nicole, Katie and Bushra did an amazing job showing the kids how to use the equipment properly, keeping everything in order (thanks Ashleigh for all that washing up!), and just generally being absolute stars! We have brought the fabric back with us so everything can be properly sewn together, and once they're ready we can send one back to Catcliffe for the students, and they can see all their lovely work displayed up on the wall. We had such an enjoyable morning and it was great to see the pupils so excited about art and being so creative. Thanks for having us! 

Where Are They Now? | Briony Canning

Below is a guest blog post by the lovely Briony Canning who studied both Fine Art and Photography here last year. Please take a look at her website too (https://brionycanning160.wixsite.com/photographyandvideo/welcome), for anyone interested in photography or film it is full of some really stunning and beautiful work! 

Thanks Briony!

Studying at TRC was the best decision I’ve ever made!

My name is Briony Canning and I’m an ex student from TRC, I studied Photography, Fine Art and Media Studies from 2015-2017. The art department were so welcoming, helpful and kind, I felt like I was able to fit in straight away. My two years at TRC flew by, I learnt so many new skills and knowledge along the way. I was taught about intaglio printing, lino printing, screen printing, darkroom exposures and all the terminology that comes with it, the list really is endless. The time and effort the art staff spend with me really set me up, ready and striving to go straight off to university to further my studies. I really can’t thank them enough. :)

I’m now studying Photography and Video at De Montfort University in Leicester! I adore photography and being at a university studying with groups of people who all share the same passion and love for the subject is inspiring. The facilities at DMU are amazing, once we were introduced to the photo studio and video studio and I was fixated. It’s such a mesmerizing space and provides influence for new and developing projects of mine. My first project in the studio was a dance piece focusing on different lighting setups, highlighting my contemporary dancer in various ways (See images below). As my course also includes video I’ve been introduced to different programs, ideas and structures to create unique pieces of footage. Videographers like Jacob Sutton with his pieces called ‘Ghost in the Machine/ Dancers – New York Times/ MOVEment’ are some favourites of mine, I’d advise you to go watch them if your drawn towards movement, editing, rhythm and pace like me. This part of my course has mentally opened new and exciting paths in my career, setting of a creative spark of mine to pursue.

Both studying at TRC and my first year DMU have built me up in confidence to go out into the real world with my camera and actually speak to people. Therefore, I’ve be able to make small connections with clients leading me to take portraits of dogs currently at Thornberry Animal Sanctuary. I’ve had the ability to help capture pictures of dogs, in need of a home, which will hopefully get them the attention they deserve to get adopted (The link for Thornberry is below if you want to see the dogs currently in their care). In addition, I was invited to oversee an event run by the charity and create a short video from the day. It just shows that one small opportunity can literally take you to one job to the other. I love love, loveee dogs, so bringing photography and dogs together is the dream job of mine! J

My advice to current students at TRC is to forever keep the passion for your subject in your mind and heart, stay inspired and embrace every opportunity that comes your way. You’ll never know where it’ll take you! Good luck with all your exams and I hope you all succeed in whatever to choose to pursue.

http://www.thornberryanimalsanctuary.org

 

For a project I was asked to create a website to display my work, so if you’re interested in what pieces I’ve been working on feel free to give it a look, the link is below.

https://brionycanning160.wixsite.com/photographyandvideo/welcome - Website

https://www.instagram.com/canningphotography/ - Instagram

Artist of the Month | February/March 2018

This is a slightly belated artist of the month, as the last half term was so chaotic we forgot to do one for February and March! So these nominations have been given to students who have really been impressing us with the work they've been producing since the February holidays.

A1 Fine Art - Emelia Young

A2 Fine Art - Modesta Povilauskaite

A1 Graphics - Mia Furniss

A2 Graphics - Megan Deakin

A1 Photography -  Amelia Fox

A2 Photography - Chantelle Humphreys