Theatre Design students’ artwork is now being displayed in the Police Station at Cardiff Bay.
Working on these paintings is the first time that students studying Design for Performance get to grips with scaling up a painting from a very small image to a very large one.
Design Technician, Rorie Brophy, Chief Inspector Nigel Griffiths, Jen Rowlands, Amanda Townsend & design student Rory Kierans admire the giant portraits
Created from scratch in four days in the College workshop, the students use scenic artists traditional methods of gridding up, and a mix of household emulsion and scenic acrylics to create these huge portraits.
Jen Rowlands, Lecturer in Design, RWCMD, said: “The next challenge for the students is to begin the process of interpreting the marks in the original into that much larger scale while staying true to the style and colours of the original painter’s work.
This skill will then translate easily into reproducing the marks – whether they be abstract, realistic, painterly, colourful, industrial or grimy – which are found on the designs for floors, backcloths and built pieces in the worlds of theatre, film and TV.”
The students will now go on to do all the painting in the College shows, both in and out of the building, over the next academic year.
MA Design student Rory Kierans’ reproduced painting of an early self-portrait by David Hockney
Rory Kierans, who is studying for an MA Design for Performance and plans to work in television, said, “It’s great to have this space to display our work. It’s the first real painting I’ve done so I’m really proud to see it on display here.”
The paintings are usually disposed of after their short exhibition in the Linbury Gallery at the College. However, following a suggestion from Amanda Townsend, Executive Administrator at RWCMD, six of the giant portraits will now be on permanent display at Cardiff Bay Police Station.
Amanda met Chief Inspector Nigel Griffiths at a memorial service at the station for PC Andrew Lloyd James who was killed in 2003 pursuing a burglary at the College.
The featured image shows student Rory Kierans in front of his portrait, talking to Chief Inspector Nigel Griffiths.
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