Art in a Mask

Masked GCSE artists made a surprise raiid on Pre-Prep assembly bewitching the young audience with their 3-D cardboard creations. 

15s pupils in Mr Parker's art class have been making 3D cardboard masks as part of their latest coursework project entitled Extraordinary People. 

To give them some ideas and inspiration, Mr Parker introduced the class to the art and sculpture of Jonathan Baldock, and they each made their own tile face in the style of his work, below:

This then evolved into examining the work of Wayne White, famous for his award-winning puppets (below), and studying his 3D cardboard masks.

In response to their research, most of the class decided to make their own White-inspired masks of 'extraordinary people' in their lives. Rather than choosing celebrities or other famous figures, many of the 15s chose a family member who was special or inspirational to them and remarkable in their own way - a grandmother, a transvestite uncle, and physician/mathematician Katherine Johnson amongst others.

'Just by using very ordinary materials like cardboard and felt in a large and exaggerated way, the effect was extraordinary. The masks just came alive, ' says Mr Robert Parker, Senior art teacher. 'I was also so impressed by the thought that went into their work. I was expecting to see lots of celebrity masks, but they chose to depict people who were special or important to them on a deeper level.'

Matilda, a pupil in Mr Parker's class, modelled her mask on Katherine Johnson, below. 'I chose one of the first female and black NASA mathematicians, Katherine Johnson, who I believe changed history and whose extraordinary abilities helped our world understand space and the planets around it,' she explains. Working on such a large scale proved tricky but she enjoyed mastering the different techniques required to build a solid structure out of cardboard. 'The creativity required and the sheer size of the piece made it challenging at times, but with Mr Parker's guidance, I produced a mask that I could be proud of,' she says. 

The masks certainly caught the eye of Mr Hooke, who was so impressed that he asked the 15s to show them off in a Pre-Prep assembly.  After getting up onto the stage, the pupils then made their way down the steps (some rather precariously due to visibility limitations!) and formed a procession down the middle aisle of the theatre. They were met with a thundering ovation by enthusiastic parents, Pre-Prep children and teachers in the audience.