Niamh Porter
Student Work
Imaginative Composition
Second Year
Beginning with the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch as an example of imaginative excellence, students developed final concepts for a utopian or dystopian imaginary composition using their choice of media. The IDEO Design Thinking Toolkit was utilized as the pedagogical framework, supporting both teacher and student through the challenging and ambiguous stages of concept development. Spending extended periods researching, discussing artworks and key concepts, ideating, and refining ideas, students exercised their creative and critical thinking skills, articulating their ideas through drawing in the sketchbook, making the process tangible.
Ceramics
First Year
Inspired by the ceramic works of Grayson Perry, students created traditional coil pots, covering the surface with an autobiographical narrative. In his practice, Perry challenges the idea that pottery is just decorative or utilitarian. For him, it is in the decoration that he gives meaning to the object. Using similar techniques to the artist, students combined line drawing, self-portraiture, and sgraffito motifs from significant memories, to reveal aspects of themselves. Once the pot was built and covered with coloured slips, students used a sgraffito technique to scratch away the colour to reveal the raw clay. The Unit was composed of observational line drawing, mind mapping, brainstorming, illustrating, designing, building, drawing, firing, and glazing.
Linoprinting CBA:
My Neighbourhood
Second Year
For this eight-week, CBA 1 project, students examined the theme 'My Neighbourhood' and created a body of one colour lino prints with chine collé. Bringing this theme on the journey of research to realisation, students learned observational drawing skills, mark making, designing, and printing.
TY Projects: Zine making and Lens Based Media
Working collaboratively in teams, students developed the pages of a zine. Through rigorous brainstorming sessions, hands-on cutting, pasting, tearing, more considered planning, designing, and sharing, all teams contributed to a final zine titled ‘Future’. This Unit of Learning was designed for a group of students who hadn’t necessarily studied art before, where the accessibility of zine making, and learning by doing approach could bring the group together. Text-based work was combined with image and montage to create an immediate means of communication. The role of the teacher in this Unit was facilitator, presenting the tools and references that could support collaboration, while the content, subject matter, and visual aspects of the work were determined by the students.
Performative photography:
Finding expression through cyanotype
Transition Year
Inspired by the constructed narratives of Cindy Sherman and Yinka Shonibare, students worked collaboratively to engage in performative photography. Interpreting myths or legends that inspire them, students created new narratives for Pangu and the Creation of the World, Icarus, Tír na nÓg, and The Banshee.
To begin, students engaged in stages of research, then mapping compositions, selecting props, designing 'sets', and taking photos digitally. The final stage of the process was the manual manipulation of the image using cyanotype- an immediate and transformative process that is highly accessible in the classroom. Rooted in experimentation, students played with exposure, mark-making, and colour to test the limits of the medium, all while reevaluating what makes a ‘successful’ image.
