A76176 Bancrofts Insight Newsletter Spring 2020 P3

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T H E A R T S
8
Tate Britain
5ths Curwen Print Workshop
Neha Pillai, U4W
RebekahWright, 5N
On Thursday 17 October, U4th art students visited the Tate
were given an hour to explore the gallery. The
different rooms and exhibitions were fascinating as we learnt
how art has been interpreted throughout the also
observed the time periods in which certain art styles were
developed such as Surrealism, Cubism and Impressionism.
Subsequently, we made our way into the Mark Lecky exhibition
titled O’ Magic Power of Bleakness.This was most of the pupils’
favourite as it contained several hidden messages.“I liked this
exhibition because you had to consider the work carefully
to understand the piece completely. It was different to other
exhibitions I have visited as the videos were juxtaposed against
the solid structure of the bridge. His work addresses the effect of
technology on popular culture. However my favourite piece in
the gallery was Close Encounters by Susan Hiller.This piece really
stood out to me as it was based on the supernatural, banal and
bizarre,” George Metson-Bailie stated. “I loved it as I felt as if we
witnessed the entire experience with the teenagers, who were
the subject of the film.The utilisation of dark surroundings created
a somewhat bleak atmosphere.This added to the theatrical
involvement of spectral visions, sound and video, which were
responsible for this feeling.” Under in by Lecky seems to be a
direct representation of how Lecky thinks drugs govern today’s
society and maybe portrays the hallucinations of intoxicating
substances in an abstract form. After Under in was finished, the
screens showed Lecky’s second theatrical composition, Dream
English Kid; this exhibit illustrates Lecky’s infanthood and past
aspirations through a collection of edited videos and photos.
Jasper Andrews said that “[he] learnt about contemporary art
from the Mark Leckey exhibition and how art can be more
than just a stand-alone object.” This trip gave me a wider insight
into the world of art and how society has a direct impression
on modern art. It also changed my perception of art that to
understand it involves a huge involvement of analysis.
In October, the Fifth Form art students were lucky enough to take a trip to the
Curwen Print Study Centre to improve and add to our coursework. Despite the hour-
long journey and the cold weather it didn’t feel long until we arrived in Cambridge.
Once there we entered their amazing facilities with the acetate designs we’d created at
school. Patsy and Charlotte, who led our workshop, showed us a variety of different ways
to mark acetate than just the etching tools we were used to.These involved using different
types of sandpaper and also placing Lego bricks beneath whilst sanding to create circular
designs and using masking tape and duct tape to give the ink a more textured look. Once
we’d finished testing the new techniques and adding them to our original designs, we
began using the presses. We had a choice of green, red, blue or black ink and we spent
lots of time meticulously inking up our designs.
When we were printing Patsy and Charlotte showed us new techniques to make them
more interesting.They showed us how to overlap ghost prints (prints from an already
used and inked acetate) using different colours to give a psychedelic effect.They also
showed us how to create one print in many different colours at once and use chine-
collé, which is tissue paper with glue on the back.This can be pressed into your print to
create areas of solid colour. All this drastically increased the amount of our work and also
improved its quality and experimental aspects which is really beneficial to were
very lucky to be able to go!