A Year in the Art department
Previous page: Sevenoaks School Certificate work by Joe Hayward
It is natural to reflect on the past year by evaluating the work of the department. I feel fortunate in this regard that our exam courses offer staff and students open-ended opportunities for daring creative expression.
The breadth of the work students produce at IB level provides the strongest endorsement of the value of the course. While all students initially pursue a common curriculum based on developing the raw transferrable skills of an ambitious, flexible, contemporary artist, they are soon afforded the freedom to investigate personal areas of interest. For some, this is an invitation to deepen their knowledge of traditional processes; many just want to grapple with the messy business of painting or working from direct observation of the human form. For others, they treat it as a forum for exploring fresh territory.
An interest in architecture might spark a body of work that looks at manipulating structure and volume through the manipulation of abstract slivers of soft metal. Alternatively, a video projected onto a ceiling might record and moodily enhance a student’ s observation of moving water. The key is harnessing an individual’ s natural strengths and interests, providing just enough structure to allow freedom without restricting ambition or personal expression.
Likewise, the Sevenoaks School Certificate is now well established as our alternative to GCSE. Again, we enjoy the creative freedom this offers both students and staff. Rather than an artificially restricted ten-hour exam, pupils are able to make work that can be conceived and constructed over many months. Consequently, ambitions can be pitched much higher and work much more considered and refined.
26 ART REVIEW