Students exhibit work alongside an original Henry Moore

Two Canterbury College Art and Design students won a competition to work with professional local artist Patrick Crouch. Patrick, a former Art and Design Canterbury College lecturer now runs Pure Form - a locally based sculpture group.

Charlotte Simms 17 yrs from Sandwich and Fraser Doyle 18 yrs from Dover, along with eight other pairs of BTEC National Diploma Art and Design students, were asked by College lecturer Ben Kidger whose work is also featured in the exhibition – to create a Henry Moore style sculpture, and experimented with different medias including clay, plaster and wax to create their desired effect.

Headed up by Patrick the sculpture group has followed Henry Moore’s principles of direct carving in stone, presenting approximately 30 pieces of work that have been inspired by Moore and the Kentish landscape.

In cohesion with the exhibition the eight pairs of students presented their work to the selection panel which included a representative from the Canterbury Festival. The team debated over who should go through to create the final piece of work, and exhibit alongside an original Henry Moore worth £200,000 as part of this years Festival. 

Charlotte Simms and Fraser Doyle were eventually chosen as the winners and began their final piece.  The winning maquette has been made into a life size sculpture by Charlotte and Fraser and will be shown alongside the other sculptures in this inspirational show.
 
Charlotte said: ‘I can’t believe we were chosen, its quite amazing to think my work is displayed next to an original piece by Henry Moore. You normally have to be a dead artist for something like that to happen!’

A Canterbury Festival spokesperson said: ‘The festival team really enjoyed being part of the judging panel, all the students worked hard on the project and due to the high standard of their work it was a real difficulty to decide on the winners – I hope we can work with Canterbury College students again next year’.

Click to view photos from the exhibition