Forest Gate students’ 10-hour art masterpieces

These students really threw themselves into their artwork for this school project.

Year Nine pupils at Forest Gate Community School, in Forest Lane, Forest Gate, embarked on their three-year GCSE Art & Design course with a 10 hour mock exam to finish their first year “Portraiture and Identity” project.

The paintings are their personal response to the work of American artist Chuck Close.

All 27 of the 13 and 14-year-olds created the A1-sized pieces over two days - Thursday June 27 and Friday June 28 - in the Art Department.

Gordon MacGregor, Head of Art & Design at the school, said: “This was the students’ first experience of creating a large-scale and complicated painting under an exam situation.

“They reacted magnificently, each taking inspiration from the artist they had been researching – American Painter Chuck Close – and created their own, unique paintings based on their own photographs and drawings.”