Nurturing young talent in art show

The exhibition highlights some of the raw talents of the Respond Academy’s students. Ranging from the wild joyful colourful paintings of Adam Fisher to the dark sultry jazz portraits by Joe Bell as well as huge wallpaper designs by Hannah Boxall – the exhibition really shows off the uninhibited nature of the academy’s ethos to nurturing the students’ creativity.

Project director of the Respond Academy Jc McFee said: “The Respond Academy is a creative learning community for young people based in St Leonards. We help mainly children and young adults who have either been excluded or alienated from mainstream education or society in general because of their challenging behaviour. And rather than be faced with a life on the street with drugs or crime, we give them an alternative to channel their energies into something more creative with team work.”

The collaboration project helps nurture this talent and gives them a purpose to aim for. Murmurations gallery director Joe Nguyen commented: “As part of our continuing search to find local emerging artists we discovered the Respond Academy’s students at last year’s Coastal Currents Open Studios festival. We saw the wealth of raw talent on display and having listened to their ethos we admired their approach. We offered them an exhibition as an opportunity for them to help motivate their students to realise their potential by seeing a possible end product to their creativity.

“Often young artists fail to understand some of the vital skills needed to become a professional artist; whether it be learning to develop self-awareness by composing artists’ statements, or by developing resilience to criticism. All artists need to arm themselves with self-belief as part of the creative process.” The show will be the first step of many for these young artists into the future. Emergence runs from February 6 – March 6. The gallery is open from 10.30-4.30pm ; Tuesdays to Sundays (closed Mondays). 17a Parkhurst Rd, Bexhill. For more information go to www.murmurationsgallery.co.uk ; Respond Academy –www.respondacademy.org