Creating a Brighter College - Student Art Competition draws inspirational entries
Some of the considerable artistic talent on display at the Yorkshire
Craft Centre on Friday 28th April will soon be gracing the College’s
boardroom and meeting rooms. The College is undergoing a significant
period of renewal, demanding creative vision to realise the brightest
future for learners, staff and the people of Bradford and beyond. What
better way to inspire the decision making process than to refresh the
meeting rooms with a new body of visually exciting, thought provoking
and positive images of Bradford, its diverse population, urban and
rural landscapes and architecture as visualised by the College’s
students?
Students from throughout the college responded
enthusiastically to the challenge, producing an array of images
utilising media including acrylic, charcoal, digital, pencil, collage
and watercolours. Reflecting the diversity which is the pride of the
College, entries were drawn from further and higher education, full and
part-time, and from all points on the age spectrum. The standard of
entries was so high and the artwork so varied, that selecting the
winners proved extremely testing for the judges, Principal Michele
Sutton and College Corporation member, Karl Oxford. They were greatly
impressed with the ingenuity, inventiveness and accomplishment evident
in all the works submitted. The judges did not consider the age or
course of the entrants, merely how they had responded to the brief.
Take a look at the judging process.
A far more pleasurable task fell to Kevin McGuinness, Chair of the
College Corporation, who presented the prizes. He praised all the
contributors who he reagrded as following in the tradition of artistic
luminaries and former students, Hockney and Galsworthy. There were four
winners of one hundred pounds each: John Ainley, Amelia Crossland,
Michael Flood and Andrew Wild; and four winners of seventy pounds each:
Adam Harrison, Jane Pawalek, Rachel Philips and James Priestley. The
artwork of the eight major winners will be framed and used to decorate
the meeting rooms. In recognition of the formidable effort involved in
all the artwork submitted, all entrants received gift vouchers for ten
pounds. You can see the prize winners and enjoy their work in the
galleries - Major Prize Winners' Gallery and Presentation Gallery.
Young talent was supplied from several fifteen year old school students
who attend College to take BTEC courses, while two students from the
Drawing and Painting class were over eighty. James Priestley first came
to the College in 1942 for a textile science course but had to abandon
his studies when he was called up to serve in the war the following
year. "I appreciate the fact that I have been to able to contribute
something at my time of life and that my controversial but humorous
take on the subject made an impact. I incorporated Victorian
architecture, 60's cubism, the proposed lake and Yorkshire dialect in
my design. I have always drawn but starting art classes has given me a
new lease of life. I felt fifty years younger when I got my student
card!" Hopefully the new artworks will prove similarly stimulating to
all who view them.