Acclaimed artist Clare Twomey opens Putney High School's art exhibition

Clare Twomey recently unveiled the GCSE and A-Level Art and Design and Technology exhibition at Putney High School.

The artist, curator, and researcher has worked with major public institutes in her career which include the Foundling Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Tate.

Her works in performance, serial production, and transience have received several exhibition prizes and awards, in addition to presenting her commissions in three continents.

Students were able to showcase their creative talents and imaginative pieces of their own as part of the school’s Annual Fund DICE series, which involves art talks and workshops.

Charlotte Buck, the school’s head of Art and Art History, said: “Having an artist such as Clare at this exhibition inspires our students, giving the sense that anything is possible.”

Harriet Taylor, a Year 12 student at the school, was curious to ask the artist about her motivation behind Humanity in Our Hands, a Holocaust-themed piece that was created and handed out at Westminster Bridge.

She said: “This resonates with the situations we have been facing recently and I wanted to know how she feels about this now, as the piece was conceptualised five years ago, yet it is so relevant now.”

Clare herself spoke about how she developed the passion for art from her mother in her childhood, and how she “always loved material, textures and the way it looked and moved.”

She was also asked about how pupils at the school were taught art, and said: “The school has a personality, the art feels personalised to the students. The art classes reflect that the pupils are comfortable and confident.

“You can see that the teachers want them to understand the fullness of art, including how it can marry with architecture and literacy.”

Ms Twomey’s work, Wuthering heights – a manuscript, is currently on show at the Brontë Parsonage Museum until January 2018.