ELAN Expressive Art Exhibition 2024

On Wednesday 13 November 2024 we were delighted to welcome over 250 students from our local primary schools to celebrate the output of their work in the latest of our annual Art Outreach Projects.

Sidcot has been a trust partner with a local co-operative trust since 2014. In October 2017, this group became a multi-academy trust now formed of nine schools serving around 3,500 pupils in the local area, known as ELAN. Each year, we partner with ELAN for a range of sporting, dramatic and artistic activities held both at Sidcot and in their own schools.

This year’s Art Project has focused on students exploring expressive painting – a unique journey into colour, texture, and collaborative creation. ELAN teachers attended a one-day practical art workshop in the Sidcot Studios, where the project theme was explored and techniques including layering, collage, and mark-making were employed. Here, colleagues had the opportunity to develop skills and visual language.

Each School was then provided with a practical teaching resource pack to enable the delivery of the project. They encouraged their young artists to learn about composition and visual storytelling, then applied these skills to explore how shape, texture and colour convey emotion.

The resulting work from all nine schools was then put on display in the Sidcot Art Gallery for six weeks. The result is a striking collection that showcases both individual voices and group creation. The children visited to see their work framed in situ and to make use of the Sidcot Art Rooms for an additional artistic project exploring the use of pattern, led by the Sidcot student Art Lead Learners & Scholars. ELAN pupils were also given certificates to celebrate their work. Parents from all of the schools were then invited to visit the Exhibition after school hours.

This project builds on last year’s Cyanotype exhibition and 2022’s ‘Ancient Vessels’ ceramics masterclass, and is now established as an annual event where we explore a new art technique or process each year. Congratulations to all those who have contributed to the exhibition.