Junior Cert Art Exhibition

The Junior Certificate Art work by pupils in last year's Form III is now on dispaly in the BSR. There will be a reception in the BSR on Sunday 13th after the annual Carol Service in the Chapel.  Some of the work is of a very high standard as can be seen in the small selection below.

Joanna Tottenham             Craftwork                 Batik

Zuleika O Malley                            3D Construction

Hannah Wentges          2D Studies                 Painting

Michael Kemp                       Preparation 3D Studies 

James Glen-Craigie            2D Studies             Painting

New Painting acquired for the College.

The college gained a new work of art lately, a painting by Old Columban Conrad Frankel. The picture is in a photo-realistic style and is called 'Tennis Players' and shows a pair of young Edwardian women in dappled light with tennis raquets and long dresses. Conrad is from Co. Cork, left St.Columba's in 1997 and is based in London. He has recently turned to this new style of extremely time-consuming painting from his earlier more unrestrained work. But portraits are still his primary subject matter. Nowadays he is using as his inspiration the earliest photographic portraits from the Victorian era and the early 20th century which he picks up at antique stalls in London.  His current works offer an interesting reflection of portraiture from an era when it was believed that photography was set to supercede painting and indeed cause its demise. 'Tennis Players' was bought for the college from profits of the school tuck shop at a much reduced price thanks to the artist.

Scc Art would like to thank Mr. Ronan Swift for being the driving force behind the purchse of this paining and so adding to the College Art Collection.

Friday's Photo

Today's photograph was shot by Amelia Shirley Form V, during the snowfall in February 2009. The pathway leads the viewer into the photograph and forces the eye up to the snow covered brances of the trees, which on closer inspection resemble cracked ice.  With Christmas almost upon us it is an appropriate and atmospheric photograph to publish.

Photographic Exhibition at IMMA

Picturing New York: Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art

25 November 2009 - 7 February 2010 @ IMMA, Dublin.




Picturing New York comprises 145 masterworks from the photographic collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, covering the period from the 1880s to the present day. It celebrates the tradition of photographing New York, a tradition that frames and influences the perception of this vibrant urban centre. Including photographs by such influential photographers as Berenice Abbot, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lisette Model, Alfred Stieglitz and Cindy Sherman, it explores both New York and its inhabitants, highlighting associations – from the vast, overwhelming architecture and bright lights, to the diversity of people that lie at the soul of the city.

Senior Forms studying Art and Photography will attend this exibition in the new year.

Junior Certificate Projects

                                                   Form III Junior Certificate projects are well underway and all pupils are developing their themes based on those given by the Department of Education.

Posted today are some examples  of 2D studies (painting/graphic design) and batik craftwork.  Candidates must complete three pieces of work based on the theme they have chosen. Their completed project  will comprise 2D studies,3D studies and craftwork. Each finished piece must be accompanied by a preparatory studies sheet and a support studies sheet.

William Maire Craftwork (batik above) work in progress


The Art Department are also getting ready for the up-comping exhibition of last years Junior Certificate work on  this coming Sunday evening in the Big School Room.

Timothy Hone           2D Studies (painting)     work in progress.

Ilya Zyzlaev,  2D studies(graphic design)  work in progress

Sam Harley                 2D Painting            Form III

   Conor McCooey Preparation for 2D Form III

 

Rachel Rogers   2D Graphics      Form III

Exhibition of work by Emily Archer (OC).

Emily's exhibition opens this evening at the M.T.S.L. on South William Street, Dublin (see details below). SCCArt wishes her all the best in her first solo exhibition.

"I see my work as a series of personal expressions presented in a way that makes them both accessible and ambiguous to the viewer".

Emily Robyn Archer. (OC)

Art Department Resource Library

 Recently a large number of National Geographic Magazines were donated to the Art department resource library. These publications are a valuable store for secondary source material for our pupils when they are researching various themes for their projects. They are much appreciated and the Art Department wishes to thank Frank Cullen for making them available to the college.

F J Cullen                                    'Self-Portrait'

Form V, Still life compositions

 
Imogen Wardell                              Form V 

These two very strong, yet uniquely styled still life compositions were painted by Form V Pupils Imogen Wardell and Toni Hoffmann. The dark backgrounds and the highlighted subject matter in the foregrounds are somewhat reminisent of the style of Caravaggio who employed the technique of creating dramatic effects with light and dark known as Chiaroscuro.

Toni Hoffmann                       Form V

Chiaroscuro

 chiaroscuro - (pr. kee-ahr'oh-schoo"roh)

A word borrowed from Italian ("light and shade" or "dark") referring to the modelling of volume by depicting light and shade by contrasting them boldly. This is one means of strengthening an illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface, and was an important topic among artists of the Renaissance. It is also a word which is synonymous with the work of Caravaggio.

Still Life with Fruit.

 A painting by the Italian  master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) in which the technique of Chiaroscuro is quite obvious. It depicts a wicker basket heaped with various fruit and vegetables sitting on a stone table, caught in Caravaggio's usual strong yet mellow shaft of light falling from the top left. The bulk of the space is taken up by the large melons, marrows and pumpkins, the watermelon and pumpkin cut open to display the interior, the marrows, long and twisting, seeming to wish to escape the two-dimensional space of the picture plane.

'Wild Heart of Africa'

This beautiful book 'Wild Heart of Africa' was presented to the College by Dr. Neil Stronach (OC) after his wonderful Geography Society lecture on Sunday 22nd  November. This book will be of interest to Geographers and Artists alike as  there are some really beautiful watercolour paintings by  Bodo Meier in the book. It is definitely worth a look to see the sublte effects and visual textures he achieves with this medium. It can be found in the SCC Library, in the display cabinet inside the door.

Watercolour Painting.

The Form V Q Set has been getting acquainted with the basics of Watercolour Painting. They have been using the National Geographic Magazine as  secondary source material for their compositions. Considering the background, middle-ground and foregrounds for their compositions, and the application of washes have been their main focus so far.

Work in Progress

Study for a Watercolour Landscape.    Susannah Cooke, Form V

Study for Watercolour Landscape               Miriam Poulton Form V

Study for Watercolour Landscape               Olivia Plunket Form V