VIDA'S EXHIBITION
This is Vida's exhibition. Vida is 8 years old, and has regular sessions with Liz at VISual Arts. She has curated this online exhibition, and chosen a selection of artworks from the many pictures and sculptures she made between January 2023 and June 2024. She has arranged her work into six categories, or rooms (as in a physical gallery), that reflect her favourite topics covered. She says she loves her exhibition. We say she should be very proud of herself!
ROOM 1: SCULPTURE
This is Vida's favourite room. It includes her design for a Renaissance theatre (based on the Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza) enacting the story of Daedalus & Icarus from Greek mythology. She also made a miniature Renaissance palazzo, after the Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, complete with courtyard, decorated rooms, and an outside balcony. The final piece is a
wire sculpture, from a project on line drawing that asked how can you turn drawings into 3D sculpture.
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ROOM 2: ILLUSION
Illusion is everywhere in art. The first two images are about perspective and modelling, traditional techniques that create illusions of depth and solidity. The last two images are abstract, and are illusions that make lines dance.
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ROOM 3: PRINTMAKING
These are all about exploring different techniques and their results. The first is a watercolour monotype, and Vida really liked the textures it created. The others are more traditional monotype methods (dark field and light field).
ROOM 4: HISTORICAL.
A lot of Vida's art sessions at VISual Arts look at the history of art, and ask "how was that made?" These pieces, arranged chronologically, from Ancient Egyptian (top left) to Baroque (bottom right), are from the Marks and Materials series, where we recreate tools and mediums, and find out what it was like to make art hundreds and thousands of years ago. A particular favourite was the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, and the labyrinth of Knossos. Of course, Ariadne and her ball of twine was the real hero!
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ROOM 5: MARK-MAKING
Spots, drips, scribbles, flows - there are endless ways to make marks, and they are all the basic building blocks of art.
These mark-making pieces include dot drawings inspired by the local Roman mosaics, and scribble drawings experimenting with colour palettes. There are also lots of abstract patterns here; even cursive writing - a very familiar form of mark-making - makes very beautiful pages in a sketchbook.
ROOM 6: THE OCEAN
The subject connects these works, and it is important to Vida because she lives on an island. When making art about the sea and sea life, she likes to use a range of different colours in the sea because sea is never just blue!
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