The Beacon Art Exhibition 2025

After much anticipation, Wednesday finally saw The Spinney doors open to the exciting annual Beacon Art Exhibition, showcasing the wonderful work of every pupil, from Nursery to Year 8. The exhibition encompassed a wide range of themes, exploring many mediums. This show provided a great opportunity for parents, pupils, local residents and even local schools to admire the talents of our Beacon boys.

🐻Little Beacons were very proud to be part of their first whole school Art Exhibition, taking the theme of nursery rhymes as inspiration for their artwork. Based on their favourite nursery rhymes, our Little Beacon boys used a variety of materials, including paper plates and colourful paper to make their wonderful creations.

🤹‍♂️Centred around the theme of the circus and the exciting characters within it, our Reception boys created fabulous pieces of work. This included skillful jugglers, daring trapeze artists and, of course, colourful clowns! They used a range of craft materials, such as card, tissue paper, straws and pompoms, and used this opportunity to practise their cutting skills, resulting in some masterpieces, of which the boys are very proud.

🦎In Year 1G, our Pre-Prep boys exhibited their Indigenous Australian art – they painted using characteristic dots to recreate the imagery of animals from the dreamtime.

🌠Boys in Year 1B and 1R exhibited their depictions of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. They used a limited palette and tried to recreate the swirls and marks that the famous painter used.

🐍Experimenting with a range of materials to create vibrant rainforest scenes, Year 2 used observational drawing techniques to carefully sketch and colour the animals that inhabit these environments. They additionally explored the diverse shapes and patterns that can be found in the rainforest, and presented this on their own designated board.

📜As Year 3 have been learning about Ancient Egypt in lesson time, they created a stunning collaborative collage of Tutankhamun, using a variety of materials. The boys also crafted their own cartouches and ornate jewelled collars – all of which feature in the fantastic display!

🦴One of the main centerpieces of the exhibition was Year 4’s highly ambitious, large scale skeleton sculptures, and clay skeleton heads based upon the theme of Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos). The skill and perseverance needed to create such forms were evident, and the work was quite the talking point of the show. Some beautiful and unique birds also provided another wonderful feast for the eyes. These were inspired by the work of Mark Hearld, a successful contemporary artist.

🍭Year 5 were responsible for a fabulous installation of giant, brightly-coloured lollipops, inspired by Claes Oldenburg, that captured the magic of childhood. Our boys worked in pairs, using papier-mâché and paint to make the larger-than-life forms, resulting in the ordinary becoming extraordinary.

🖼️Inspired by the anonymous street artist Banksy, Year 6 created their own spray-painted canvases. They experimented with spontaneous use of colour and have developed layered imagery using stencils. They also really enjoyed creating their own graffiti-style tags, whilst exploring watercolour techniques.

🪵Year 7 created some truly beautiful willow sculptures, whose forms were inspired by natural forms, and the organic shapes and patterns in the work of sculptor Peter Randall-Page. The forms were coated in tissue paper, creating a delicate skin-like surface, evoking fragile cocoons. In addition to this, they designed and carved their own lino prints depicting their faces, inspired by the woodblock prints of the German Expressionist period.

🌎Our Year 8 pupils explored the theme of ‘Identity’ by creating three vibrant, collaborative mannequins, each proudly wearing a unique Beacon uniform. Inspired by the work of Yinka Shonibare, every pupil contributed an individual piece to a shared costume, resulting in a powerful expression of ‘collective identity’. Their creations drew on themes such as culture, religion, childhood memories, fears, hobbies, and future ambitions. In a striking visual statement, each mannequin’s head was replaced with a globe, symbolising the rich multicultural identities celebrated within the Beacon community.

During the school day, each year group had a time slot to visit the exhibition to view their own pieces and those of their peers. Our Beacon boys were extremely proud to show their parents their artwork personally after school, and the event was a huge success. Thank you to all the families, Governors and staff who attended.