Selected from over 2,400 submissions, the A-level Summer Exhibition Online is a showcase of the UK’s young artistic talent.
This year, 1,200 aspiring artists attending sixth form colleges or schools submitted their work to the A-level Summer Exhibition Online 2017. Take a look at this exhibition of 49 outstanding works of art, selected by our expert panel: Royal Academician Wolfgang Tillmans, curator Per Rumberg, and RA Schools student Jessy Jetpacks.
Having work chosen to appear in the A-level Summer Exhibition Online is a great achievement for young artists in the UK. Many of these students will go on to develop their talents at art school and in their careers. Students from all over the UK enter their works and the exhibition showcases a rich variety of styles and media: from drawing and video to sculpture and prints, painting and photography.
Held to coincide with the world’s largest open-entry exhibition, the Summer Exhibition, this online equivalent for artists aged 16–18, signals an exciting future for art in this country. Be among the first to discover these artists now.
"It is easy to dismiss 16-18 year-olds as not knowing what they are thinking and feeling. But the privilege of being on the jury this year allowed me to witness the clarity of thought, vision, and intuition that a young mind has. I think Here, There and Everywhere deserves a great deal of attention and so do the artists selected. As always there is the quagmire of drawing the line, in or out. We, the jury, would like to send a great deal of encouragement to those who didn’t just make the cut, to not lose faith, and to carry on exploring your vision. Next time, yours might get selected."
Please note, this exhibition contains some adult content.
Free
The Pits
Alice Wade St Mary's School Calne
I was inspired by the use of cognitive dissonance by numerous video artists and related that to my interest in the perception of female body hair. I took audio from a male grooming pubic hair ad and overlaid it with an almost 'how-to' guide for dying your armpit hair. In The Pits, I suggest that men are encouraged to experiment with their body hair and so can women. Female body hair isn't gross, as the patriarchy suggests, it can be used to experiment with. Your body is a canvas, have fun with it!
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There
Giacometti's Rock
Rory O'Neill Sydenham School
1938. Giacometti has been thrown out of the Surrealists. He isolates himself from Parisian life, holed up in his studio, Samuel Beckett being one of few visitors. He thinks back to his childhood and his encounters with a frightening dark rock. He drinks coffee, chain smokes and eats simple food, bread and ham. My video recreates this episode in Giacometti's life. I took ideas from Beckett's plays such as repetition and futility to show the mental anguish of Giacometti.
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Everywhere
Contained Still Life
Ella Sheffield Sutton High School
Using the base of Giorgio Morand's work, due to the compositional balance and simplicity of the subject matter, to initiate the film. Nam June Paik inspired the shots that are of the outside of the box, playing with the ideas of reality in art, putting another dimension into the film concerning the actual making of the art. With my exploration of The Neon Demon and the range of techniques used – static camera, geometric compositional elements, coloured lighting, as well as the music, I feel the inanimate subject matter gains a sense of emotion.
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Riddlesdown Collegiate
I was inspired by Australian artist Illma Gore and her crudely naked painting of Trump. I wanted my sculpture to be equally as shocking to match Trump's own proposals. After visiting the 2016 Turner prize I was inspired to create a sculpture as a response to Gore's work. I…
King Edward VI School
The artwork features May, Merkel, Putin, Johnson and Farage engaged in a game of poker around the negotiating table. This is part of a series of political cartoons in the post-Brexit political world, inspired by the work of Peter Brookes and Steve Bell. With the use of gifs I aim to bring…
ACS Hillingdon International School
Inspired by the image of a drowned Syrian refugee baby on the beach near a Turkish resort in 2015, I created this piece as a depiction of the shocking events that resonate with the current refugee crisis. Furthermore, the narrative aspect of the Bayeux Tapestry as historical record…
Bedford College
My series of Grotesque Women was influenced by my readings of John Berger's book Ways of Seeing and in particular the chapter based on the objectification of women in art: "Thus she turns herself into an object and most particularly an object of vision; a sight". Instead of…
The Tiffin Girls' School
In this piece I was exploring themes of childhood, memory and perception through the use of strange and unnerving details. I began with a photograph of myself as a baby surrounded by multiple stuffed toys which I then edited in order to add creepy features or distortions to lead…
The Thomas Hardye School
The focus of the project works to examine the social divide between affluence and deprivation, exploring the concept to observe and visually record the people living in the areas of which are subject to pejorative stereotypes and dismissive attitudes. Evaluating the work of Dana…
Simon Langton Boys School
This piece was produced as a result of a study into conventional beauty, and the richness a pure aesthetically appealing portrait could convey. Inspired by Mercedes Helnwein, I used a sultry, moody image with a cinematographic essence. I was also influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite…
The Thomas Hardye School
In this series, I have focused on the influential significance of faith in many lives, observed through the perspective of both its believers and its sceptics. The project works to evoke the personal, emotional and devastation aspects of the religious life cycle , to portray the transition…
Loreto College
This photography project looked at homelessness in Greater Manchester. During this project i came across a group of homeless people living in a camp they called ACE (Alex, Collin and Emma). I talked with them about their experiences being homeless and they were gracious…
The Thomas Hardye School
One percent of the British population has been diagnosed with a form of Autism. This therefore being a big part of everyday life for 2.8 million families, including my own, my project was focused on the challenges faced by my little sister Daisy,who has Asperger syndrome. It was…
The Thomas Hardye School
The theme of multiples underpins Faith, conveying my subject matter – the plight of refugees and the pain of separation – through structural repetitions and material variations, as well as the repetition of forms to create impact. I have used pigmented concrete to create war-torn…
Sydenham School
My school project was to invent my own artist and showcase their work. I chose to look at emerging feminist art of 1970s America, specifically Eleanor Antin's Portrait of the King (1972). My artist, Nova Wolff (1938-1999) was a recluse feminist artist, struck by influences of Betty…
Magdalen College School
This piece was inspired by the dual decay of fabric and body in grave and burial grounds. I loved how fragments of textiles are found covering the skeletal remains of a body, both with very different histories, which are both lost due to inevitable death and decay. I was also interested…
Beaulieu Convent School
The piece Balance was created in the influence of Andy Goldsworthy's outside structures and technical skills in using true, raw materials to connect the feelings and emotion to passers of its spaces. I had started to admire the idea of art created by solid nature when I was…
King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls
In this portrait I attempted to adopt the painting style of artist Kehinde Wiley. He seems to exaggerate highlights and shadows in his pieces, which are almost exclusively of people of colour. This community has historically experienced a lack of representation in art. He also…
Tolworth Girls School
My influence for this piece came from my focus on memories within the theme of Journeys. The painting depicts my older brother's 1st birthday and includes both my older brother as a child and my father. Whilst this scene is a poignant childhood memory, I wanted to retain…
The Latymer School
I wanted to take apart my relationship with the seaside, treading the boundary between expectations and reality. I contrasted the busy and vibrant beach-life with the tranquil escape of being submerged.…
Westminster Academy
This is a transcription of Titian's Venus of Urbino, a symbol of beauty, love and desire. She is replaced with a full-figured man who is made to feel ashamed of his body as he is not deemed beautiful under societal norms. The body guides a line down the piece by which there is an…
Twyford Church of England High School
This photo was inspired by Felix Hernandez and his work with creating bigature photos. I wanted to use the same ideas as Felix to see where it got me. The train and the signal light are both miniature models. I wanted to try and create a scene where the models looked like they were…
Ousedale School
I visited Iceland with my school last October and, like the majority, found it to be one of the most surreal and breathtaking places I've ever experienced.…
Lady Margaret School
The comfortable environment of the bathroom: a place where one is completely alone with one's thoughts, without the expectations of others influencing them, one is completely unmasked. I began to delve deeper into exploring what made a comfortable environment: colour,…
The Thomas Hardye School
I was inspired by the reliquary of Saint Catherine's head which I saw in the Siena Duomo. I found the decadence of such a gruesome display of sacrifice and death quite disturbing and wanted to make a simplified version of the form. The harsh, irregular stitches used to build up the…
Exeter College
Here I was trying to create a sense of isolation by focusing on the figure and its surroundings. I was heavily inspired by the art of Vicken Parsons and Constant Nieuwenhuys, who produce works which aren't too dissimilar in style to architectural designs, yet have the effect of…
Exeter College
I was exploring the theme of isolation, and how I could communicate this to the viewer. I was particularly interested in artists who explored this theme through the way they presented the human figure, such as Francis Bacon, Antony Gormley and Kathe Kollwitz. Although the finished…
Rochester Independent College
I like making sculpture from reclaimed materials, seeing the possibilities in discarded metal, wood, tools, bones and wire, etc.
I enjoy exploring the contrasts between different materials and the how organic materials can become machine-like and vice versa. In this sculpture I have…
Queen's College
I have always been fascinated by the ways science can be used to inspire artists. Taking chemistry A-level, I use the periodic table of elements often. I thought it would be interesting to use the structure and organisation as inspiration. Each circle represents an element and I have cut…
Melton Vale Post 16 Centre
My curiosity about the human form, how it works and what lies beneath the skin led me to produce a textile collar. Inspired by the brief Biomorphic Forms, I created a piece of work that explored the anatomical and biological structure of the human body. The collar depicts the…
The Thomas Hardye School
In 2014, Dorset county council reveal eight proposed static traveller sites: new areas to quench the need for improved facilities and space for the traveller populations across Dorset. Despite the need for new pitches, each and every site proposed was contested by local residents, or…
St Benedict's School
My piece was inspired by city urban decay and industrialism. The legs are made from MDF slabs that were then layered with quick-dry concrete before being roughly painted in an acrylic grey. The rough paint symbolises both human imperfections in construction and the…
The Sweyne Park School
My paintings are abstract and deal with the formal elements of painting: colour, drawing , shape, contrast. I have developed my approach from working on figures in crowds and found my forms in response to the compositions I worked out from these observations. My palette is…
London Design and Engineering UTC
This piece was designed with the thought of nature evolving towards the extent where it overtook humanity when it was at its weakest. This is the time period where we have yet to experience, towards the future decades from now. During this time period, humans have used up all…
Francis Holland School
A wall hanging inspired by the performance art of Ragnar Kjartansson and ideas of repetition along with movement that further sparked an interest in transitory mediums, most significantly water. I was seeking to capture the movement of water while alluding to the next, with the…
Moretonhall school Shadow Bars depicts a juxtaposition between the sanctuary of a bedroom and the isolation and loss of self suffered by Romanian orphans during the Ceasceau's leadership. Working from scrumpled sheets made from fired porcelain clay, I used colour with care in order to depict …
Burford School
I have a strong interest in photo-realistic art and have studied Todd Ford, whose work is of an extremely photo-realistic style and focuses on the distortions created by glass on other objects. This aspect of his work inspired this piece of fruit in a mason jar, which i have created using…
Cranleigh School
With this piece I was focused on the beauty and strength of mountains and how they relate to our backs, in ways such as the complexity and wonder of them. I was focused on the sublime aspect of them both and how no one really appreciates their mass and vastness. I found it…
The Thomas Hardye School
The interdisciplinary nature of art gives me the freedom to express my concerns about the world in a tangible form. In the Loop inspired by Nam June Paik, highlights how EU countries dump recycled electronic goods in West Africa. Consisting of discarded TVs, the installation…