Exhibition showcases students' creative talents

Suitcases filled with personal mementos to symbolise the lives of a family torn apart by war, a sculpture exploring pregnancy and relationships, and a shop window advertising campaign. Each was just one element of a week-long exhibition held earlier this month to showcase the talents of young artists on courses at MidKent College.

The exhibition, held in Chatham Dockyard’s grade 1 listed number 3 slip, had been organised by art and creative media students studying at the college’s Medway Campus.  Acting programme area leader for art and design courses at the college, Stacey McCormack, said: “The exhibition provided our final year national diploma students with an opportunity to showcase their handiwork. This included an eclectic range of 2D and 3D pieces they had produced for course units in textiles, fashion and sculpture. The work of a select number of first diploma students was also included in the show.

“They all did incredibly well to put together the final exhibition - particularly our first diploma students, who had produced work of an exceptionally high standard.”

16 year old Joanne Young, who has just completed a first diploma in art and design at the college said: “I’m really excited to have been given the chance to exhibit my work as part of this show, but it does feel a bit weird. I never would have thought my artwork was good enough to sit alongside some of the pieces produced by these other students.”

Joanne, a former pupil at Fulston Manor School in Sittingbourne, received a distinction for her piece – an abstract sculpture inspired by the emotional and physical changes brought about in women through relationships and pregnancy. “It’s a conceptual piece constructed using mod roc, plaster and wire,” she said.