Students showcase diverse talents in art exhibition

By Sarah Pitt

Every year, St. George’s School puts on an exhibition of its students’ artwork, presenting an array of styles, techniques and ideas from the Early Years to the eldest Year 13 students.

Dr Christian Barkei, Principal of St. George’s International School, Luxembourg welcomed those present – students, parents, teachers and guests – to the opening of the 2015 Art Exhibition. “The purpose of this annual exhibition is to demonstrate the enthusiasm that all of our students have for art. The care and attention that goes into each work and the imagination, experimentation and willingness of each student to explore their creative side and to take on new challenges in art never ceases to impress.”

“All of this couldn’t have been accomplished without the guidance, support and enthusiasm of their teachers, with special thanks going to Ms Tyrell, Ms Thomas, Ms Jones and Ms Berg.”

“The exhibition reveals the progression of art throughout the years and the freedom of expression that the students exhibit so well,” concludes Dr Barkei, inviting those present to take the tour.

To give you a brief overview, among other things, Year 1 students presented colourful collages and explorations of light and dark and Year 2 made a didgeridoo forest, moving monsters and Mondrian animals.

Meanwhile, Year 3 decided to be botanists creating beautiful watercolours in addition to making some exotic realistic looking chocolate platters. The exhibition also features textile works on the topical theme ‘The Threat to the Honey Bees’ and Matisse-inspired collages from Year 4 and models, mosaics and textiles from Year 5.

The whole collection displays a wide variety of talent.“The idea of the exhibition is to showcase what the students at all levels can do. We encourage them to use as many techniques and to develop as many skills as we can,” comments art teacher Julie Tyrell.

Year 6 created works inspired by Van Gogh’s one point perspective and imitated Cave Art and Year 7’s exploration of watercolour to create maps of Luxembourg City centre and insect images are colourful and lively.

Year 8 made acrylics of everyday objects while Year 9 students were invited to illustrate the name of St George’s International School, Luxembourg in different ways and experimented with Peruvian Folk Art.

Year 11 presented emotive and reflective depictions on the themes‘Order and/or Disorder’ and ‘Together and/or Apart’ as part of their final GCSE course work.Year 10 also showed lots of promise and potential from the beautiful architecture and cityscapes, to portraits and landscapes, to everyday and natural objects.

Last but my no means least, the personal portfolios and pieces presented by the final two senior years show significant talent, effort and originality.

Unable to give credit to everybody or to describe each Year group’s art fully and do it justice, we have put together a photo gallery for you to see for yourself.

Guests enjoyed drinks, canapés and students’ lively musical performances throughout the event at a school where artistic creativityin all its forms clearly thrives.

And that’s not all…

St. George’s also has an on-going art project with Luxembourg City contributing to the “My Urban Piano” project, following last years’ successful initiative, “Play Me I’m Yours” which saw pianos scattered around the city, inviting people to play. “An old piano otherwise destined for destruction was given to the school for secondary and primary students to decorate, showing the progression from the private to the public sphere,” states Dr Barkei. 

Over the summer, the piano will be one of 15 to be placed at designated locations across the capital from 6 to 21 June for the public to play at their free will and whim.  

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