Art Show a Breath of Fresh Air

The hugely popular annual Girton Junior School Art Show will be an outdoor event this year, with student artwork displayed on the external perimeter of the Junior School campus on Monday, 29th November. 

Junior School art teacher, Mrs Nic James, who has run the Junior School Art Show for more than twenty years, said that the display of student artwork outdoors was initially intended to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. The idea grew into something bigger, and now, students are excited that passers-by will see their art in a unique outdoor Art Show. 

“This year’s theme is Creatures, and the students’ imaginations have run wild. 

“We worked so hard during remote learning to keep the inner artist alive in every young student. 

“While it was lovely seeing the students’ artwork via the screen and doing virtual art gallery tours, it is a delight to display artwork by the students to friends and family in a real-life show. 

“The students love the idea that their artwork will stretch around the entire Junior School block, including a display of work in the prominent windows of a homewares shop and plumbing store on High Street.

“Every year, it is a tradition for our Year 6 students to decorate a skateboard deck, and these will be displayed along MacKenzie Street. On the wooden fence on Don Street, there will be a photo of students’ eyes, so the children will have fun trying to identify themselves,” Mrs James said. 

With approximately 400 students in the Girton Junior School and at least one piece of artwork from each child on display, the Junior School Art Show will be huge. From creatures who roam the dessert to outer-space aliens and critters from the ocean’s depths, the students have depicted all manner of living things to suit this year’s Art Show theme. This will be the 24th Girton Grammar Junior School Art Show. It is one of the biggest of its kind in Central Victoria. With an exhibition not possible last year, the students and teachers cannot wait for this year’s unique and public display of artwork. 

“It has been so wonderful to see students from Prep to Year 6 immersed in artwork this Term. 

“I am immensely proud of the hard work our students have demonstrated and their creative visual interpretations of Creatures in all of their weird and wonderful forms,” Mrs James said. 

Thanks to Reece Plumbing and Make Your House a Home on High Street, who kindly agreed to display student artwork for the annual exhibition.