Kunst

Hot on the heels of the very successful REACH week of awareness, the students at Da Vinci took part in a school wide art week. Modern Art was chosen as the overall theme, with each class focussing on the work and style of one particular artist. The children worked on an individual piece of art, and then as a class produced a group piece. Those of us with children in the kindergarten classes, were invited into the classes to help the smallest artists create their masterpieces.

Individual art works created by Kindergarten Two. These were inspired by the artist Gale Kaseguma.

Olive’s class explored the work of Brazilian neo-pop artist Romero Britto. His work combines elements of cubism, graffiti and pop-art, and is full of warmth and optimism. Olive loved dabbling in Britto’s style – the bold colours and simple shapes really captured the children’s interest and it was lots of fun painting with them.

The Britto inspired work of Kindergarten Three. Olive created the “Britto bride” on the left hand side in the bottom row.

For their group piece, Miss Olga got the children to “Britto” a simple set of drawers. Olive was particularly proud of this.

In Kindergarten One, Niki de Saint Phalle was the chosen artist. De Saint Phalle was a French sculptor and painter who became known for her work reflecting on the position of women in society. She created numerous “Nanas” – sculptures of voluptuous women decorated in vivid colours. Edie was particularly taken with the name “Niki de Saint Phalle” and took every opportunity to say it aloud. When it was time for me to help with her painted Nana, in true Edie style, she didn’t let me help at all! I relished the opportunity to watch as she wielded her paint brush and am very proud of the fact that her canvas is one hundred percent her own work.

The Nanas of Kindergarten One. Edie’s is hard left, second row up from the bottom.

Kindergarten One’s group piece. Their own little Nana sculpture.

At the conclusion of art week the PTA were charged with the task of displaying the many wonderful pieces created by the students. We decided to set up an art gallery and fortunately there was an empty room which was crying out for a makeover. We painted every wall and most of the windows white and our two wonderful caretakers helped us to arrange and hang every canvas. It was a great deal of work but the kind of work that you can’t help but enjoy.

Inside the Da Vinci art gallery.

Individual pieces from Grades One, Five and Six.

Roy Lichtenstein inspired self-portraits by the students of Grade Eight.

Work from the upper secondary students.

Grade Three’s group piece is very special for Da Vinci. It’s a cubist inspired rendering of the school exterior.

Grade Five’s group piece is one of my favourites. It’s a quilt made from Warhol inspired self portraits.

The ultimate Da Vinci group work – photos of every child and teacher.

One of our parents took all the photos, whilst another ran them all through PhotoShop.

The result was pretty impressive.

On Saturday Da Vinci held it’s annual garden party. There were food stalls representing many of the different cultures in our school community, a talent quest, performances by the rock band and the dance group and, of course, face painting!

Tiger Olive.

Edie chose the hummingbird.

The highlight of the afternoon was the art auction. Each group piece went under the hammer. Apart from online auctions on Trade Me, this was the first live auction I’d ever actively taken part in and it was very exciting. Parents competing for works created by their precious children led to a bidding frenzy and a significant amount of money was raised for the school. Olive was over the moon when I successfully bid on and won the set of drawers created by Kindergarten Three – only had to go over my budget a teeny bit! Phew 🙂

Click on the link to my Flickr photos if you’d like to see more art week and Garden Party photos.