The very first Plymouth Young Contemporary Open (PYCO) exhibition opened at Radiant Gallery and Peninsula Arts Gallery on Friday 1 July. Following on from the success of Plymouth Contemporary Open, PYCO was created to showcase the incredible talent of children and young people, read more here.
I was kindly invited by Made In Plymouth to attend a private view of Plymouth Young Contemporary Open 2016. The exhibition was created following on from the success of it’s parent exhibition Plymouth Contemporary Open last year. I was really pleased to be invited as I would be getting a first look at all the amazing artwork that was created by talented children and young people in Plymouth.
The finalists work was split across two different galleries in the city, Radiant Gallery and Peninsula Arts Gallery. For the first year, the theme for the exhibition was GROW. While walking around it was amazing to see different people’s imagination when it comes to the subject. Some people went for the obvious with the environment whereas other people were more creative with the subject.
It was amazing to see everyone’s imagination, some of the work was just amazing and things I would never think of creating myself. I feel the different age categories worked really well and you could see some real talent in them. All of the ideas worked really well in relationship to the subject. There were a few that you could understand just by looking at them but others you had to read the artist’s comments.
Amelia Goodman created a piece called Groa. It was of a dragon that she created in her story The Magic Egg. The piece works really well as it’s showing the change from the dragon being a character in a story to a piece of art. Showing people her imagination and how she envisions things. Looking at the piece I couldn’t understand how this was related to GROW but after reading, I understood completely and thought it was a lovely piece.
All the pieces within the exhibition were from one person, so this piece by the Boringdon Art Club, stood out to me. Titled the Tree of Life, it was created by twenty children from an after-school club. The whole piece is handmade by the children, with them blowing ink through straws to create the effect of small twigs and branches. The children all chose an animal or plant to produce for the tree to symbolism the object on the planet.
As soon as I walked into the Gallery at Radiant, I saw a young girl with a camera taking photos of people in a make shift frame. It was really nice to meet Isabella Colthurst, her idea was one of the best on show. It got members of the public involved in her work as she wanted to create a life timeline of people. She wanted to photograph different ages and then put them in order to show the change we go through as we’re growing up.
For more information of future events, visit their official website HERE or follow Plymouth Young Open on Twitter HERE.
An Ocean Glimmer 