Students at the Curragh Post Primary School were among the stars of the eighth annual

Creative Engagement exhibition hosted by the National Association of Principals and Deputy
Principals (NAPD), showcasing their artistic and creative talents.

An online exhibition took place between Thursday 4 and Saturday 6 March, officially opened
by Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin, and
among the digital booths was the Curragh school with ‘Individuality & Identity’, co-ordinated
by art teacher Antoinette Brennan w
ith Monasterevin-based artist Paul Woods also onboard.

The project was carried out with fifth year Leaving Cert Applied (LCA) visual art students and
the idea evolved from the LCA module titled ‘Individuality & Identity’. The theme of exploring
identity and individuality enabled students to meet the learning outcomes required for their
course while being given a special artist-led opportunity to explore their own individuality and
identity and express their findings through creating art. Mr Woods was selected because of
his success in working with fifth years on a similar theme in 2018/19.
Students produced a ceramic and mixed media artwork that reflected their own individuality
and identity. The artworks are large multimedia pieces containing a ceramic self-portrait
surrounded by renderings of imagery and still life objects that reflect aspects of the students’
identities.

They began by looking at historical and contemporary artists who also used still life as a
device in creating a self-portrait. Students made sketches based on their interests and
hobbies and they used photos of themselves to make their self-portraits. They then
developed their drawings into 3D. The pupils got to create a large-scale artwork that would
not normally be tackled within the school art room.
“Their backgrounds, they’re all different, they’re all based on aspects of their own, I suppose,
identities and objects that relate to them in their lives,” Ms Brennan explained, noting that
one student brought in plants and flowers from her mum’s garden.

Seven pupils took part in the creative project. Ms Brenan said of one of the students, Ellie,
that “her image was used for the catalogue, you know, so that was a big deal… she was
delighted with that.”

Mr Woods planned the content of the workshops to ensure the project would meet both the
LCA module learning outcomes and project aims/deadline. I asked Ms Brennan if it was an
enjoyable experience working alongside him and she said it was brilliant.

The artist, she noted, “has a really good way with the students” – he’s “easy-going with them
but yet he gets good work out of them… it was brilliant.”
Judging by the quality of their work, these budding young creatives clearly have a bright
future ahead of them! Well done to all involved.