Strong Greenham show by creative arts students from 10 local schools and colleges

GENerate: student exhibition at The Base, Greenham until January 28

Review by LIN WILKINSON

Students from 10 local schools and colleges are showing work for a second year at The Base at Greenham, an exciting opportunity for creative young people to exhibit in a professional environment.

Work is displayed in both the main gallery and the Runway Gallery, and this year there is an especially strong showing of printing and photography, a reflection of students working in contemporary media in today’s image-saturated world.

Georgie (Mary Hare) shows two silkscreen and pen prints incorporating linear organic elements. Margaret (Newbury College) explores coloured typographical design in two lino-prints; fellow student Jo presents a geli plate print: a circular abstract composition.

A digital print by Callum (St Bart’s) has elements drawn from music festival publicity. Amelia (Trinity) plays with cut elements of the King’s head in a pen and photo composition in restricted colour.

From three iCollege students there are pleasing coloured print panels, each featuring a different everyday object: pencil sharpeners (Nixie); garden forks (Maddison); and keys (Evie). ‘London Underground Stamps’, two linked digital prints by Ed (St Bart’s), feature red, blue and black abstracted yet familiar motifs.

Among the photographers, Alex (St Bart’s) has a panel of three strongly composed images, all using the same compositional elements: a red-haired boy in a blue suit, a green laurel hedge and steel posts. Eloise (Downe House) presents a pleasing multi-image portrait, and a Newbury College Student Collective a panel of six nicely lit portraits.

Two Downe House students focus on the theme of the city: from Rose a composite black and white photographic image of juxtaposed elements of high-rise city buildings; from Sienna a mixed-media collage that suggests both the rush and the anonymity of city life. Fellow student Thea presents a very strong, completely abstracted black and white image.

A beautifully composed photograph from Harley (Mary Hare) of two lemon quarters in bubbling black and silver water has a metallic feel.

An acrylic on paper from Coral (Trinity) can be read both abstractly and representationally. Amelie (Cheam) references Cubism in her coloured-chalk still life; Phoebe (Trinity) presents three lively watercolour and pencil drawings of a girl in motion. Within the iCollege’s strong showing, Alisha has two lively, colourful acrylic collages, of a hummingbird and a puffin.

There’s also more conventional work. Sophia (St Gabriel’s) shows a nicely realised chalk and charcoal illustrative drawing of an elephant. Fiona (Newbury College) pays homage to Basildon painter Nick Schlee in a well-handled landscape (emulsion on canvas), and Robin (Newbury College) gives Donnington Castle an impressionist treatment.

Two students from Basingstoke College of Technology show oils on pastel paper, both in vibrant, warm colour: Joseph a beach sunset, Gabriel a fantasy woodland. Traditional subject matter, too, in a painted red, white and blue diptych of the late Queen by Archie (Cheam), her absence suggested by the empty white profile.

Textile work includes colourful torso coverings. Nyle (St Bart’s) experiments with textures, materials and colours. From Downe House, Cecilia and Iris have brought together stitched and knitted materials; Alice has used textile elements over wire netting to form hollow natural forms. Grace (St Bart’s) works in embroidery, two small round pieces taking their theme from woodland surfaces.

There’s an intriguing collection of five small constructed sculptural forms in clay, metal and acrylic by

Mayoma (Mary Hare). By contrast, Elfreda (Downe House) works on a large, muscular scale, combining industrial and organic materials: steel supports bear a light source enclosed within a slatted oak form.

‘Captured’ by Francesca (Mary Hare) is a full-size but constrained cardboard figure. Working almost in miniature, Emily (Newbury College) has created three pristine-white, layered ‘shadow boxes’: scenes of the natural world.

From Elstree, Valentina and Alethea show small mixed-media books incorporating drawn and textile elements, and Basingstoke students - Matilda, Jasmine, Jodey, Billylee and Ident Oleksandra - deserve praise for their ambition and initiative in each producing a lively animation.

The exhibition runs until Sunday, January 28 (Wed to Sun 10-4; book a time slot). Free admission (suggested donation on door.)