Congratulations to the wonderful Year 11 Art & Photography students for an outstanding exhibition this year! There was a huge amount of work and the quality was as high as ever. I have had numerous comments from staff, parents and former students about the amazingly confident and politically motivated work on show - there were some excellent themes delved in to by our students to help inspire their creative work. From the current political climate to the 12 trials of Hercules, feminism, immigration, consumerism, transgender rights, the idea of the perfect female body throughout time and the destruction of ancient monuments; there was a huge amount of thought, time and effort put in to each project. The artwork on show was brilliantly colourful but highly conceptual, and the students really showed us all how powerful Art can be in exploring and understanding the world around us.

 

The wonderful Rye Society of Artists, represented by Davida Smith and Steve Duffy, once again donated generous prizes of £50 to three RSA Prizewinners, and also chose 3 students as Highly Commended. The three RSA Prizewinners were: Felix Allsopp, Harry Stevens & Charlotte Williams. The three students awarded the RSA Highly Commended Award were Tyler Williamson, Astrid Fenton and Isaac Wall. The Art Department Award for Excellence went to Kasia Armstrong-Smith, the Art Department Award for Most Improved went to Freddy Bartlett and the Year 11 Leavers Award for Art went to Ellie Bourn. David Purdie, of the Purdie Gallery kindly donated two Photography Prizes which were awarded to Megen Williams and Ellie Day. Local Photographer Stuart Griffiths awarded prizes to Susie Deighton-Brown, Laura Gow and Jevon Fullalove. The Photography Department Award for Most Improved went to Samuel Symons and the Year 11 Leavers Award for Photography went to Amber Turner. Congratulations to all of our prizewinners this year!

 

My fondest wishes to all of our Year 11 students and I wish you the very best of luck in your futures - it has been a pleasure to work with you all! A huge thanks to the team who made it all happen - Stuart Chester, Andrew Gilpin, Matt Hardman, Chris Loveless, James Loveless, Jane Loveless & Simon Potter - thank you all so much for all of your hard work, time and effort. Thank you also to the Rye Society of Artists, David Purdie & Stuart Griffiths for their generous prize donations to help encourage our students to continue to aspire to artistic excellence and keep on creating inspiring and thought-provoking work. ​​

 

A selection of the Year 11 Art & Photography work will be exhibited in Gallery 6 at Rye Art Gallery from Saturday 29th July - Friday 25th August 2017. Please do join us for the Private View on Saturday 29th July from 11.00am - 1.00pm!​​​​​​​​​

 

Lauren Loveless, Head of Art