We are delighted and honoured to welcome Ambassador Mitsuru Kitano, Japan’s Ambassador to Ireland, to our school Friday, December 13th to open our Rang VI pupils’ Japanese Art Exhibition. The theme of our Exhibition is: ‘Great Modern Painters of the Ocean’. Our Exhibition is based on the impressive work of the great Japanese Art Masters of the Oceans, namely: Hiroshige and Hokusai. Renowned local artist Carmel Madigan undertook and completed this creative, artistic project with pupils of our two Rang VI classes. We are also very appreciative of the Clare County Council Arts Office who kindly approved this project under the Artists in Schools Residency Project. Our Exhibition also ties in with our current whole school effort to obtain our Green Flag based on the theme: Global Citizenship – Marine Environment.
From the start, our pupils took great interest in this project and over 6 days researched the life stories of the Japanese Art Masters, Hiroshige and Hokusai. They studied the geography, culture, language, craftwork and art of Japan. We spoke about and discussed the daily lives of these two great Masters. With Carmel as their tutor, our pupils have now developed a great appreciation of the world recognised artistic genre called, ‘Japonaiserie’. For their hand-on work, they have made simple wave-like prints using Japanese calligraphic inks. Our pupils then used technology to translate their names into Japanese format, which they used to sign their individual artworks using Japanese reed pens. Our pupils used a combination of ocean themed artworks create specifically by Hokusai and Hiroshige and digital images from Co. Clare Atlantic coastline to develop our own individual Japonaiserie – ukiyo-e style ocean themed artworks on high quality water colour paper. These small artworks are pre-mounted onto mdf board for handling and display puposes.
Now that their work is finished, our pupils are really looking forward with great excitement to Ambassador Kitano’s visit. As well as celebrating the wonderful art of Japan’s great Artists we will also show case our own wonderful Irish culture to Japan though our language, song and dance.
