Art that transports you... (From Surrey Comet)

Art that transports you...

2:00pm Friday 4th March 2011 in Exhibitions

The theme of transport has inspired a group of year nine students to create a new exhibition at Richmond's Riverside Gallery.

Artists Rachel Craddock and Eleanor Pile led a group of 13- to 14-year-old students from Grey Court School, Ham, in a two day workshop in which they created homages to train and tube posters from the 1920s and 30s.

Their work is now being displayed alongside those original posters in the Transported exhibition which is running at the Riverside Gallery, at the Old Town Hall, from Saturday until May 28.

The posters that the students used as inspiration were created by leading artists of their day, to celebrate the historic houses and picture-sque gardens of Richmond and its surrounding areas that were, thanks to transport links, within easy reach of the centre of the city.

Craddock says that careful analysis of these originals underpinned the students approach to creating their own versions.

“We analysed the poster designs and looked at all the reasons why people were coming out to Richmond at the time the imagess were created,” she explains.

“We also discussed the composition and the concepts and discussed the pictures we liked and didn't like. The students went on from there, selecting the subjects from in and around where they live for their own posters.”

The Grey Court students created prints and collages that promoted particular forms of transport, including buses and boats, and celebrates landmarks such as the statue of Queen Victoria in Kingston's Market Place. A number of environmental themes also emerged Craddock adds: “We really wanted to get the young people to think about advertising then and now and we gave them an experimental process to work with.”

Transport yourself to this excellent exhibition and see the results of these experiments for yourself.

For more information about the exhibition, visit richmond. gov.uk/arts