Top Arts and Kids' Arts

We went to see Top Arts 2014 at the National Gallery last weekend.  It was, as usual, interesting to see the techniques and the art favoured by the teachers and examiners, and the artworks produced by the students. 

All three adults voted Claire Kopietz's "Oxheart" the standout piece in the exhibition, which is amazing since none of us are usually terribly keen on DVDs as art.  However, this piece was a beautifully done exploration of the influence of two deceased grandfathers on the artist.  The cartoon-like sequences conveyed the emotions, memories and influences of the two men in a very artistic manner and had us totally transfixed.  Bravo!

Miss Three preferred the interactive nature of Kelly Bull's "midnightRUN", a graphic novel, done in black and white, and Christina Garvie's "Liquid form", a DVD exploring the property of pink paint in water.

Other outstanding pieces included Osgar Teague Murphy's colour laser prints using maps and photographs, "The Dublin mariner: 45816", Madeleine McDonough "Swarms", which was a circle of cicadas and made of bamboo, nails, synthetic polymer paint, glass and wood, Georgia Mein's exploration of gender in her photograph series, "Agenda", and Taylah Ransome's intricate lino cuts.

Adelle Elksnis' "Botanical Anatomy 1" was pretty incredible and meticulous. The flowers in these digital inkjet prints were made up of human bodies. 

Danielle Schmidt's "Untitled" were also pretty arresting.  Pastels on grey paper.

I also liked Jordan Hall's resin sculptures

Bonnie Koopman's graphite works, "Convergence"

Mollie Wilkins' colour inkjet print, "Tea time at the edge of madness"

 

 Cassandra Min's synthetic polymer paint on four canvases, "Symphony series"

Paris Triantis's synthetic polymer paint on canvas on plywood triptych, "Malice"

Tommaso Nervegna-Reed's synthetic polymer paint and coloured ink on composition board "4D7", which was very reminiscent of street art

and Kiri-Una Brito Meumann's vertical blinds using photographs of aged skin, "Untitled".  And, before you ask, I am not going to make curtains from photos of my skin!

 

All this art was contagious.  Miss Three had fun making kites from paper, stickers glue and string.

 

Miss Nine drew on cotton with alcohol based pens

 

then  watched the results which developed by pouring alcohol on the  drawing.

 

The drawings ran and she swirled the inks around.  When they dried, we ironed the fabric to set the ink.

 

Now she can use the fabric for sewing.