6 December 2018

This term in Art ECA, we spent our afternoons producing a playful collaborative artwork exploding with colour and pattern.

We took our inspiration from the work of British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, who uses waxprint heavily in his work, drawing on their popularity as “authentically African” fabrics and calling attention to their origins through English and Dutch colonial trade routes from Indonesia to West Africa.

Each middle school student worked on a disc, painting designs seen in waxprint fabrics, then embellished with odds and ends such as corks, bottle tops, felt tip marker caps, and popsicle sticks. They then worked together painting the background to mobilise their discs in a kaleidoscopic arrangement of lines, shapes and patterns. Their piece is now proudly on display at the front of the Art corridor.