From March 27-29, YCIS Shanghai’s Regency Park Campus courtyard was transformed into a spectacular, colour-filled gallery showcasing incredible student artwork during the Pudong campus’ 85th Anniversary Primary Art Show. The entire space, including all of the walls and doors featured the students' creations! The three-day show demonstrated the tremendous creativity and skill of the young students at YCIS. 

The show featured an abundance of projects, each of which incorporated a variety of art materials and techniques. The major projects all started with a single question and the children all worked together to use their talents to address the answer.

The 85th Anniversary Art Show was organised by Ms Anita Dai, Primary Art Teacher at the Regency Park Campus. Ms Dai uses her classes to inspire her students to create artwork far beyond their years. She was on hand during the show for the full three days and said of the students’ work. “A high level of artistic skill was evident in all of the projects on display, but even more significant was the level of creativity and the individual differences in each project. That is definitely the most impressive aspect of the show. Each student, from Year 1 to Year 5 should be proud of their achievements in Art this year.”

Among the sections of the exhibition were:

• ‘The Magic Kingdom’: a secret crawl-through tunnel featuring glow-in-the-dark stamp prints of animals and plants designed by the children. This was a huge hit with both children and the adults brave enough to enter!

• The Angler Fish project by Year 4 students: This was a special unlit booth with colourful lights inside to draw visitors in. Inside were anglerfish (deep sea creatures that have bioluminescent lights at the end of a lure that protrudes from their heads, ready to draw unsuspecting fish close enough to devour)! Luckily for visitors, these anglerfish were actually light-up sculptures created by the students which incorporated wires, LED bulbs, and circuitry skills that the students had learned in science class.

• A project featuring bird sculptures which came about from the Year 5 students learning about bird migration as well as immigrants and refugees. The children thought of ways to use symbolism and created birds without wings. The birds were covered in collages made of magazine cut-outs from articles on human migration and the birds were displayed in a boat and in a plane to symbolize the ways in which people migrate.

• Much of the work on display was made from what could be considered ‘trash’ – including everyday items such as egg boxes, cans, boxes, coffee cups, and other items which could be reused. Ms Dai encouraged the children to reuse as much as possible to show that art does not always need to be made from new materials. This also ties in with the YCIS ethos of being environmentally-friendly. One of the projects created using recycled materials featured lively animal sculptures suspended from the ceiling, created by students who turned the materials into their own fantasy animal (for example, part-bunny and part-zebra). This was an exercise in learning how to combine sculptural pieces to make one bigger sculpture. 

• Along one wall was the “Great Wall of Year 4 Great Walls”, a display made by students which highlighted the individual sections of the Great Wall of China.

• Jackson Pollack-inspired splash paintings which were created outdoors and allowed students to express themselves however they liked.

Other displays included watercolour collages, charcoal lions, vibrantly-coloured clay pinch pots, silkscreen dragons, African tribal masks from Year 5, as well as incredible self-portraits by Year 2 children.

To create such exciting artwork, each year level studied various famous artists from a variety of backgrounds in their art classes with Ms Dai. The students learned about the special techniques and unique styles of these artists and used this inspiration as part of their creative journeys.

After the art show came to a close, all the artwork itself was carefully collected for distribution to the young artists and will be proudly displayed in the homes of the creators.

To learn more about the innovative and extensive creative arts curriculum on offer at YCIS Shanghai, please click here.