GENerate: Student exhibition at The Base
Review by LIN WILKINSON
Pictures by PHIL CANNINGS
NOW in its third year, the varied and colourful GENerate exhibition at The Base at Greenham is a wonderful opportunity for students to showcase their work in a professional environment.
Curated by The Base exhibitions team, students from 16 state, independent and SEN schools and colleges in West Berkshire, North Hampshire and South Oxfordshire are showing work in a wide range of media and with differing aesthetic approaches.
The students’ age range varies from 11 to 21, so the work unavoidably demonstrates varying degrees of creative maturity.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
Work from particular schools has often been made to a similar theme. From the ICollege Alternative Education, Lauren features the same motif in three linked linoprints of St Paul’s, in varying colour combinations, an approach with a long tradition; think Monet’s haystacks and Rouen Cathedral. Lacey’s striking Me and Jack comprises two identical images hung as one work but given different colour treatments. In Sacré Coeur Leon has cut up and reassembled his linoprint to create movement and an unsettled feel.
Several young photographers from St Bart’s, including Rosie, work to a theme of Urban Graffiti, contrasting the geometry of monochrome buildings with coloured graffiti. Indulge by William (Hurst) uses a watch face as the motif in a photographic composition structured by both camera blurring and sharp focus.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
The abstracted Science by Sinling (Downe House) has the look of a traditional photogram; Calvin (Basingstoke College of Technology), has produced the poster Last Harvest, combining photography and digital drawing, with skilful use of blur and colour. Eugene (St Bart’s) shows Coloured Lights, a series of three imaginative photographic portraits using differential focus and drawn elements.
Several students from Brockhurst and Marlston work in mixed media to a theme of aliases, Peter’s Peace Alias showing a CND symbol atop the head of a bison.
The corrugated-card head of a rhino by Alice (St Bart’s) has great presence. The forlorn Shipwrecked is one of two works on the same theme by Etienne (Mary Hare), pleasing constructions combining ceramics and textiles.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
From The Hurst, Tommy’s You Should Never Suffer at the Hands of Man (linoprint, fabric and photography) is serious and deeply felt. The agitprop Protest textiles and wood) by Poppy (Downe House) fizzes with anger over Israel’s war on Gaza. It is all the more telling since the materials are traditionally worked by women.
Some Mary Hare students have worked in group collaborations. Art Protest Placards (cardboard, wood and paint) nod to the work of Bob and Roberta Smith; other students have produced a beautifully constructed metal tree bearing glass ‘leaves’.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
Zak, Ryan and Ola (Prior’s Court) show a vertical panel of three works in plaster, acrylic and gold wax, bearing organic surface elements; they evoke ancient sculptural fragments.
Three textile ‘garments’ work to a familiar brief but with very different interpretations. Elsy (St Gabriel’s) focuses on women’s rights; Sophie (Downe House) combines textiles with latex which ‘distort’ the body; and Lily (St Bart’s) works in sea greens and blues with coastal elements.
Among the painters, Lily, by Thomas and Ola (Prior’s Court), depicts a flower opening. Winter Skies by Archie (Castle School) shows icy winter colour in well-handled watercolour, and there’s fine illustrative work by Danielle (St Bart’s) in Endangered, which depicts a polar bear with intensely detailed fur. Alice (Didcot Girls’ School) shows a heart-warming aerial view of three generations of women.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
Hala (Trinity) unashamedly looks to Hockney in a sunny landscape of simplified form and vibrant colour. From St Gabriel’s, Matilda’s oil portrait of Lucy is conventional in subject matter and media, but is made exceptional by its vibrant, gutsy approach and thick materiality.
Newbury College students work to the theme of My Calm Place, Kara finding peace in a white-crested acrylic sea. In What Lies Beneath from Cohen (Kennet), a peeled-back skull reveals two personalities; a sad and disturbing image. Meadow (Basingstoke) shows Dodo and Pigeon, with its ‘layering’ of two strong shapes and contrasts of rich colour and focus.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
Cheam’s Willa looks to pop art in an acrylic of high-heeled shoes, cherries and lipstick, concerned with flat areas of colour, bold outlines and the graphic feel of a poster. Also from Cheam, Isla shows Monty, an irresistible acrylic of a hairy dog; Dorcas (Didcot) presents a small sculpture of a reclining pink-pawed cat.
From Elstree, Thea’s textile T-shirt is lifted above the conventional Union Jack symbol by glittering embedded elements. In Features, Flora takes a straightforward illustrative approach in pencil sketches of hand, eye, ear and mouth; mixed-media images of poppy heads by Dariya and Dang Dang Liu are pleasing in their composition and materiality.
GENerate: Student Art Exhibition
Eve, Anna, Zachary and Mohammad (Mary Hare) pay homage to Delft ceramics with their charming blue and white plates, and Gwyn (Didcot) shows great technical skill with her delightful small glass wall-hanging Hummingbird.
From Downe House, two students show imaginative, superbly designed and made modernist tables, combining glass, wood and metal. Madeleine’s features bent wood; Mia’s rectangular wooden frames create the structure. As much minimalist sculpture as furniture, both show skill and aesthetic maturity.
GENerate: Student Art ExhibitionGENerate: Student Art ExhibitionGENerate: Student Art Exhibition
The show runs until Sunday, January 26 (open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm).
Book a time-slot. Free entry (suggested donation on door).