Art Trip to FirstSite

Posted On: 27/11/19

Last week, the Year 10 GCSE Art class and the Year 12 A level Art class went on a trip to Firstsite art gallery for a guided tour and a fantastic artist-led workshop by the talented Elaine Tribley.

The students were first shown around an exhibition, Chance and Control: Art in the Age of Computers, and then were asked to experiment with the idea of chance. They had to create a mixed media piece of artwork and the idea was to use all the materials that were given to them and create no waste. Some students found this very challenging, but all thrived and created some fantastic pieces. Not having any control of the materials available to them left some students feeling frustrated and out of their comfort zone. However, the challenge and outcomes definitely increased their awareness of composition, scale, space and texture, and ultimately boosted their confidence in creativity.

After the workshop, students were able to look round the rest of the gallery and do some sketches of any work that they found interesting and relevant to their personal studies. Many were overwhelmed by the scale of Anthony Gormley's Field For the British Isles exhibition and commented on how impressed they were by the piece and the ideas behind it. We then walked over to The Minories gallery to have a look at the exhibition of work from students from Colchester Institute, including photography, fashion and fine art. Many were inspired by what they saw and gained several ideas for their own work.

Mrs B Knapp