REPORT ON THE HELLENIC SOCIETY SCHOOLS’ ARTWORK COMPETITION 2007

Number of entries:

The Artwork Competition goes from strength to strength and in its third year saw a staggering 539 entries (there had been 139 entries in 2006.) In 2007, there was nearly double the number of schools participating (from 28 in 2006 to 49 in 2007) and thus further depth and individuality to the Competition. It was good to see so many new schools from all over the UK competing for the first time. A small notice about the Competition kindly featured in Teachers magazine certainly helped bring the enterprise to many primary schools with no past experience of Classics or contact with the SPHS or JACT.

In the Primary (KS2) Section on the Cyclops there were an amazing 319 entries (30 on Jason and the Argonauts in 2006). In the Junior (KS3) Section on a Greek Vase theme there were 204 entries (71 on Hermes in 2006). In the Intermediate Section (KS4) on the Ancient Olympics there were 5 entries (33 on Perseus and the Gorgon in 2006). In the Senior/Sixth Form (KS5) Section on the Flight of Icarus there were 11 entries (5 on Greek Theatre in 2006). Apart from the rather disappointing take-up of the Intermediate Section, the keen reaction to the other sections of the Competition was very gratifying.

List of 49 Schools Competing:

Alice Ottley School, Worcester; Brentwood School; King Edward VI School, Chelmsford; Stanfield School (Merchant Taylors’ Junior School for Girls) Crosby; Merchant Taylors’ School for Girls, Crosby; Walker Greek School, London; Woodside Park International School, Barnet, London; All Saints’ CofE Primary School, Whetstone, London; Hinwick Hall College of Further Education, Wellingborough; Haberdasher’s Monmouth School for Girls; Colet Court School, London (St Paul’s Preparatory School); Parkside Preparatory School, Stoke D’Abernon, Cobham; Westwood College, Leek; Highfield Preparatory School, Harrogate; Henrietta Barnet School, London; Emanuel School, London; Northampton High School; Alton Convent School; Alcester High School & Technology College; Queen Anne’s School, Caversham; Queen’s College, London; George Abbot School, Guildford; Howell’s School, Llandaff, Cardiff; Heritage Park Primary School, Peterborough; Cardinal Newman Catholic School, Hove; Leicester Grammar School; Wylde Green Primary School, Sutton Coldfield; Westcliff Primary School, Blackpool; Maidstone Grammar School for Girls; King’s School, Peterborough; Newcastle Preparatory School; Farnborough Hill School; Martin Wilson School, Shrewsbury; Ffynone House Middle and Senior School, Swansea; Hampton School; Greek Community School at St Cyprian’s, Thornton Heath, Croydon; Richard Avenue Primary School, Sunderland; Westcliff School, Dawlish; High View School, London; Ferndale Junior School, Swindon; Chesterfield Primary School, Enfield; Honeywell Junior School, London; St Aubyn’s School, Rottingdean, Brighton; St Stephen’s CofE Primary School, South Godstone, Surrey; Elmhurst Junior School, Street; St John’s School and Community College, Marlborough; Grange Junior School, Swindon; Upton Cross Primary School, Liskeard; Countess Anne CofE School, Hatfield.

General Comments:

It was again a delight to receive so many high quality entries this year. The Competition certainly seems to have involved some innovative class projects and assignments, from KS2 projects relating to the Greeks in the National Curriculum to A Level Art coursework projects. The Executive Secretary would particularly like to thank those teachers who have corresponded with him about the Competition and given such rewarding feedback and comment on how their schools have been working.

The imaginative range of artistic media continued in all sections in 2007: drawings in coloured pencil, pen, and ink; paintings in watercolour and oil, and painted on the widest range of materials; pots made from clay, papier-mâché, even wood; clay and papier-mâché masks; chalk sketches; fabric collages; a vase cleverly fragmented as a jigsaw; mosaics of card and pottery; pottery wall masks; laminated black figure cut-outs; a Cyclops made from potatoes; montages and clever layering of visual media; wall plaques; an impressive stand-up Cyclops with an eye booklet of artwork; balloon Cyclops heads; photo story books telling the myths from vases; 3D artwork and textured cards on Greek vases; a giant felt eye; a collage of dried beans and lentils; red-figure decorations and pottery styles; a flag with the Cyclops eye as an emblem; giant murals and several textile friezes; a myriad models and figurines of the Cyclops; a sketch-book of watercolours and an oil painting in authentic imparto style on Icarus; a DVD illustrating Greek vases and their myths through model animation; several large and winged models and installation pieces with wax, wood, and wire illustrating Icarus’ fall; even a CD of music inspired by the Icarus theme.

We do encourage schools to send a portfolio or a range of images of artefacts that are impractical to send or could be damaged in transit, and this year (especially with the Vase as one of the themes) many schools did this very successfully.

KS2 (Primary Section)  “The Cyclops”: Winning Entries and Report

(As well as the prize money - books, postcards, videos and other materials on ancient Greece worth approximately £230 were awarded to these prize-winners and their schools.)

Commended:- Ross Morris did well to recognise a later part of the Cyclops story by drawing his Cyclops outside his cave and throwing rocks at 3 disappearing Greek triremes. Sabiran Ghale’s pencil drawing presented an austere Cyclops figure seated inside an intricately decorated temple and in the style of Zeus on his throne at Olympia: the whole piece had a pleasing exotic feel. Chloe Sparks had modelled a jolly green Cyclops figurine with a winning smirk and a discrete leather-style loin-cloth. Iona Mitchell also chose one of the less obvious moments from the story: her Cyclops was forlorn and crestfallen and with a red gash where his eyes had been blinded, and he sat head in hands on a rock whilst Odysseus’ ship sailed safely away into the sunset.  Oliver La Rose had composed a large wall mural with an aggressive axe-wielding Cyclops emerging from sprays of vegetation. Ross Graham had fashioned a pleasing model Cyclops in a yellow tabard and brandishing sword and with wonderful “Mad Scientist” hair. Megan Lee gave us a very innovative entry: the Cyclops was represented by the giant eye as an emblem on a blue flag. Yong Min, the youngest competitor and aged only 6, presented a highly colourful collage Cyclops using feathers all over him and with a great yellow gull-feather as a club.

Highly Commended:- Niamh Eldred, another very young entrant, painted a gurning Cyclops holding his club over his head, and we liked the moody purplish background and the fierce and almost rabid expression on his face. Callum Fear made a fine model Cyclops with a single horn who was presented on a wooden stand and dressed in an authentic furry outfit. Jessica Ridout composed a humorous vignette using clay, tissue paper, card and paint where the Cyclops was holding his favourite sheep (Penelope) in his hand, and two men were carrying a great stick into the fire. Brook Clements had made a wall plaque as a mask of the Cyclops with his nose and lips and brow emerging from the clay surface in a sombre expression. Giorgio Virgili’s goofy Cyclops model had a natty magenta outfit, unwieldy club and a wonderful pot-belly with navel exposed. Polly Windsor sent an unpainted and stylish clay mask of the Cyclops which again demonstrated great character in his thick lips and his lugubrious staring eye. Edwin Wood also made a mask but he used papier-mâché and used different wools for the hair and beard and Edwin’s mask even had tufts of suitable nose hair.

Top Three:- the Year 6 Class at Stanfield School, Crosby had presented a long and impressive tapestry frieze telling the story of the Odyssey with panels painted by each student: we particularly liked the Cyclops pictures by Nicole Morrissey and Lucy Armstrong. Mavousios Kourkoulos entered a very finely pencil drawn Cyclops with tools in his hands and a studious expression on his exceptionally detailed face. But the outstanding winner of the KS2 section was George Arghyrou, whose sophisticated colour piece in sombre and haunting tones had an ogre-like Cyclops lifting a stone menacingly as Odysseus and his crew escaped under the sheep at his feet. We felt this was a most sophisticated entry in both its technical ability and its artistic concept, and a very worthy winner for such a young student.

KS3 (Junior Section) “A Greek Vase”: Winning Entries and Report

(As well as the prize money - books, videos and other materials on ancient Greece worth approximately £270 were awarded to these prize-winners and their schools.)

Commended:- The Year 6 Class at Westcliff School, Dawlish presented a project-book on how they had made papier-mâché vases with a balloon base and had built up and decorated each piece. They showed 10 different vase designs with a variety of Greek characters and animals: we especially liked the vase with the authentic squid decoration by Isis Whiteaway amongst these 10 fine specimens. Jasmine Mohammad made a very authentic looking dark lebes shaped pot with a typical geometric mark in the tondo. Elli Spain entered a papier-mâché vase with pleasing russet and purplish tones and an owl and olive branch decoration. Francesca Magee had painted an authentic earthy-toned vase with a Heracles-like figure striding forth. Anna McManus had sculpted a flat outline in clay of a Greek vase with a Gorgoneion decoration.

Ebinimi Ino painted a red figure decorative vase with fiery tendrils on a vivid blue background. Jessica Platt painted a terracotta vase decorated with animals and horse-riders and the words of a poem, and the same terracotta colour surrounded the vase allowing the same figures to dance magically around the borders of her picture. Ayesha Holland had composed a vase emulating a scene with two crested Greek warriors in mortal combat and a geometric design on the reverse.

Highly Commended:- Maria Price composed a flattened but bevelled clay shape representing a vase and with a Greek domestic scene in authentic coloration. Eleanor Allen’s clever entry took the form of a jigsaw of pieces of broken fragments of an ancient pot depicting olive collecting; and in the guise of an archaeologist she invited the judges to put together the fragments to show some were missing and some were mixed in from another artefact. Valeria Robinson painted an impressive piece in burnished copper colours and showing a vase on a background of authentic Greek decorations, the vase depicting Athena presiding over a war-chariot and a monster fight on the neck of the vase. Alex Watts presented an oinochoe jug with authentic black figure decoration: he had carefully studied where to position his figures and the angle of their presentation with relation to the handle and front of the vase, and gave us a side view of the charioteer and the front of the horse pair as they advanced. Jack Smith entered a carefully proportioned squat vase he had made with a hound chasing a wild boar in authentic black figure colours.

Top Three:- Joe Thompson modelled a heavy and ornamental clay plaque which allowed him to depict 5 advancing Greek soldiers with deep grooves in order to decorate their shields and raising aloft coloured fire-brands. The unusual texture and shape of this piece was very pleasing. Martin Thompson had finely decorated a large earthenware amphora with three key scenes inspired by the iconography of the Troy myth: we had Achilles and Hector fighting, Achilles dragging the body of Hektor, and a lull in the fighting with a version of the two Greek heroes sitting and play dice or a board game.

Alex Lindsay & Hannah Patterson presented a unique and stylish labour of love to win the KS3 Section: a 12 minute dvd entitled “Myth in Art of a Greek Vase: The Twelve Labours of Heracles”. This fantastic piece started off explaining the different shapes of Greek vases and then a whole series of excellent iconography telling the story of Heracles – all with pleasing background music. Then we entered the drama! A whole cast of Playmobil model figurines was used with loving and careful attention to costume, props, expression and gesture to recreate the whole myth. Thus in sepia tints we saw Heracles’ initial happiness with his family before Hera became jealous and drove him to slaughter his own children. Then we saw Eurystheus sending him off on his Labours. To the rousing strains of The Ride of the Valkyries, Heracles met a panorama of full colour opponents in his 12 Labours with some very clever and effective and often extremely funny touches. Each Labour was effectively introduced by pictures of the original Greek iconography which had inspired the film. The favourite sequences of the judges were the Erymanthian boar (a giant pink furred toy pig who sticks his snout in the camera), Atlas holding up the earth (a toy monkey with a school globe) and the Augean Stables (where animated blue material becomes a river to cleanse them.) The dvd closes with a re-examination of the iconography and then a marvellous credits sequence where the whole panoply of Playmobil cast dance to King-Fu Fighting… Ray Harryhausen eat your heart out!.

KS4 (Intermediate Section) “Ancient Olympics”: Winning Entries and Report

At first glance Sam Cawood’s picture of Greek athletes looked very stereotypical until you examined it carefully, and found he had very subtly and ingeniously overlayed the ancient Olympians to give them running lycra shorts and vests with the 5 ring Olympics motif, and a version of Nike trainers. But the clear section winner was Tom Ryley: with a painting of riotous colour on the theme of Zeus watching over the activities in his sacred Olympian sanctuary and thus a spectral cloud-gathering figure looming over the stadion where miniscule athletes competed.

(As well as the prize money - books, videos and other materials on ancient Greece worth approximately £35 were awarded to these prize-winners.)

KS5 (Senior/Sixth Form Section) “The Flight of Icarus”: Winning Entries and Report

Stacey Dion presented Icarus in flight on a wafting prism of yellow, ochre and orange toned wings, and we were proud to have this finely painted entry from an FE College for those with disabilities and learning difficulties. Hannah Porter had taken a small earthenware pot and very carefully and finely overlaid it with a black figure decoration: Helios driving the chariot of the sun on one side and Icarus surrounded by birds on the other side. Lucy Roblin painted a fine oil piece on canvas with a spectral Icarus outline amidst an eddying mist of yellows and ochres as the flames consumed him. The winner of the category was a fine conceptual piece from Lucia Genziani. She had composed a large (5 foot) representation of Icarus: wings were made from driftwood, twigs, twine and wire with batik wax dripped over the joints to represent his melted form; the central panel contained an old picture frame to symbolise the telling of the story; and a fiery red acrylic painting represented the unfortunate youth as he neared unbearable heat.

(As well as the prize money – books and other materials on ancient Greece worth approximately £75 were awarded to these prize-winners.)

Overall Competition Winner for 2007:

The judges were unanimous in choosing the winners of the Junior (KS3) Section, Alex Lindsay & Hannah Patterson of Howell’s School, Llandaff, as Overall Competition Winner in 2007. The sheer scale of their enterprise and the brilliance of its delivery were a marvel to behold.

Russell Shone
Executive Secretary, SPHS (on behalf of the 2007 judges)

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