The Artist Stays

Following a set of artist-led workshops in 2012 Mobile Art School continued its work at St. Catherine’s National School in Rush, County Dublin with Rhona Byrne as artist-in-residence between April 2013 and May 2014. Rhona worked intensively with more than sixty 5th and 6th class children in developing a shared child-run studio where she and the children explored various aspects of sculpture, installation and performance art. The overarching aim was to develop the children’s confidence in their own creative thinking and intuitive capacities through an approach that valued experimentation and process rather than defined production outcomes.

“Working with Rhona has been a great experience. We didn’t just paint and draw, we also learned about other artists and experimented with different types of artwork.”

– Student, 2014

“It’s made art really fun because we got to make art our way. There are no boundaries for our creativity.”

– Student, 2014

At the beginning Rhona told them that the classroom they were in was now their own shared studio. They looked at images of different artists’ studios and discussed their differing needs, relating it back to the space they were in and what it could be. The children found this exciting. Encouraging them to start taking ownership of the space they made tape drawings, inspired by the work of Jim Lambie.

Rhona and the children looked at and discussed many examples of installation art. This included inflatable sculptures that they then went on to make themselves.

Open Day arrived. The children showed parents and students their collaborative work.