Hamilton East School stands tall in art exhibition

Hamilton East School hosted their first art exhibition ‘Standing Tall’ two weeks ago celebrating their whakatuaki.

Described as a ‘humble little event’ by Debbie Kerr, a mother of one of the students, the exhibition aims to represent the school’s whakatauki: Tū Tangata! Tū Māia! Stand Tall, Reach High.

Art teacher Olive Jones collaborated with Shelley Howse to create a school-wide art exhibition to celebrate the visual arts in the school.

“The physical symbol of this (whakatauki) is the giant redwood tree which stands in the centre of our school and is over 100 years old. Some of our art draws on this tree,” Jones said.

Every child in the school produced one to two works of art which were displayed in the school hall over the course of two days.

“The first term this year our school-wide topic was based around the whakatauki. The art that has been produced reflects this. It was decided it would be appropriate to call the exhibition Standing Tall.

The idea for the exhibition came from both teachers, who love creating art themselves.

“We have long believed that children produce brilliant artworks and we rarely celebrate the quality and inspiration of their work in a public sense. It is very important to acknolwedge their creative ideas and the wonderful artworks that they make,” Jones said.

The exhibition included a group of native birds including kereru, piwakawaka and ruru made from papier mache, a paper mache tree and autumn leaves made from clay.A set of glazed tiles made a mosaic design of sunflowers,  using dye, chalk pastel, pastel and paint.

There were also self portraits and paintings that Jones said were inspired by artists such as Hundertwasser, Modigliani, and Picasso.

Also in the exhibition were monarch butterflies and collage pictures and a tapa-inspired group work.