Yesterday we held our annual Open Evening and exhibition of our students’ art and photographic work. It’s a great opportunity for prospective students and their parents to take a tour of the college, meet some teachers and view some of our current students’ work, which is of an outstanding standard.
Art has always been a real core strength Brampton College, and this is demonstrated by exceptional success in students obtaining offers for Foundation degrees at highly competitive institutions. This year, Anita Ezeh is going to do a Fashion Foundation course at Central St Martin’s, Nelson Cruickshank at City of Guilds and Negin Kamali has achieved a place to study Interior Design at Ravensbourne College. In previous years, students have gone on to study at Chelsea and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Our students also regularly go on to study Architecture. Last year Rusna Kohli, Ere Harvey-Ideozu and Adeola Olanrewaju all have gone to study Architecture at top universities. This year Shruti Lal, Amy Susskind and Aisha Khan are also holding offers for places for a variety of specialised Art courses.
The range of work on show at the exhibition is extraordinary – interesting, imaginative and superbly executed. It testifies to the way the Department encourages students to develop their own particular voice and to push their individual explorations to the full. Students have taken on serious subjects ranging from the war in Syria, the issues around homelessness and consumerism to social media and other profound topics. Hannah Hewetson, the Head of Art at Brampton College, clearly has the ability to draw out the creative talents from our students in a natural and confidence-building way. This year she has been excellently supported by our Art Technician, Anali, herself a former art student of Brampton.
The Department also organises stimulating visits including the Royal Academy and trips to great centres of art abroad – to Venice in 2013 for the Biennale, to Paris the following year and this year they returned to New York.
Under Javier Thomas, the work of the Photography department has maintained a very high standard again this year. From Ronald Lin’s astonishing project on China – all shot on film rather than digital – and Adina Ovsiowitz’s work on the pressures of social media, to Katie Freedman’s intimate and humorous portrayal of her relationship with her family dog, and Amy Susskind’s thoughtful work on promoting organic products. Our Photography course has proved to be a great success over its first four years and we hope to continue seeing this high standard of work in the future.
Some of the art on display. A full gallery is coming soon.
