THE Sara-K Gallery
SARA KOUVARITAKIS
The Sara-K Gallery was launched in memory of a local artist, Sara Kouvaritakis, who donated her life's work to the benefit of the community. Sara suffered ill-health in her later years and her work is testimony to her ability to flourish as an artist in touch with the vibrant and unbridled energy that shines through her work.
Mo Martin is the custodian of Sara's work and together with Monkton Arts we have categorised Sara's work into different collections; one of which is a set of painting and machetes available to loan out to education providers to do projects with children which can then be displayed in the Sara K gallery.
Sara's work is for sale at Monkton Arts and the proceeds from sales are used to help fund the Sara-K exhibition space, making art accessible to all in the community.
If you are a local education provider, or work with groups of children in any capacity, then we would be happy to co-curate an exhibition!
CURRENT exhibitions will be updated shortly
All exhibitions scheduled for the dates during this lockdown period will be rearranged and publicised ASAP!
Past exhibitions
Looking Out From LOckdown
Independent Arts collated work produced from Lockdown into an exhibition celebrating how creativity has helped many through these hard times. Alongside this in the Sara K Gallery is an exhibition of photographs from the carers in The Mountbatten Hospice.
Heritage Horticulture
This exhibition showed the garden designs produced by year 5 children from primary schools across Ryde and St Helens. These designs were planted up in Eastern Gardens.
GCSE + A Level
RYDE SCHOOL
This exhibition showcased the work of the talented students from Ryde School.
In this diverse exhibition which is not usually on show to the general public, we saw work from the photo realistic to the bold abstract, sculptural to watercolour; an exciting array of fresh new local talent!
Art Class
Celebrating Greenmount classes named after famous artists
All classes at Greenmount Primary School have class groups which are named after famous artists.
Within their first term in a new class the children learn about their class artist.
They have also made sure that 50% of the classes are named after woman artist and 50% are named after men.
VIEWS OVER THE SOLENT
St. Mary's Primary School yesr 3 students have looked at the sky line of Ryde and the year 5's have looked at the sky line of Portsmouth from across the Solent.
They have used water colour wash techniques and silhouette card cut outs of the shapes on the horizon.
RYDE rainbows unlocked
This exhibition is celebrating the work children did during lockdown.
It has also been dedicated to all the children who made artwork to give away or put up to keep people happy and feeling connected.
We thank local councillor Karen Lucioni for collating the work for display.
seaside shoreline
This Exhibition showcases a project inspired by the 'Seaside Shoreline' of work done by Key Stage 2 children at Greenmount Primary School.
They covered techniques such as water colour, tracing and acrylic.
st mary's key stage 1 work
This year the reception children (4-5y) at St. Mary's took part in Australia Day. They looked at aboriginal art to inspire their own dot drawings. They also learnt about how Ryde is so important to Australia Day with the first ships leaving from off our coast line.
In September 2019 they also made tiles in a response to looking at climate change which are also displayed in this exhibition.
Rydies
The amazingly talented costume designer to the stars, Diana Moseley worked with volunteers from Monkton Arts and Ryde Society to take early drawings from children at Greenmount Primary School and turn them into 8 foot carnival costumes!
The serious message behind this fun wass to try to raise awarenes of Ryde Societies work to save the historic buildinds of Ryde for our next generation. children also drew pictures of the buildings most at threat with the message ' SAVE OUR FUTURE'
Included in the exhibition was the children's drawing, Marquette models to work out costume structure, photographs of both carnivals and one of the actual costumes.
a child's response to sara k
The Playroom Preschool– Ventnor
Greenmount Primary School—Ryde
Home Educated Children—Cowes
Joseph and Daisy — Monkton Arts
Sara K Provocation packs were sent out to the above groups who used them to inspire art projects and creative writing.
Me in my world
In honour of Mr Richard May leaving Greenmount Primary School after over 20 years to become an artist, Monkton Arts in collaboration with the Sara K fund held a whole school art competitions with the theme 'Me In My World'. Throughout the school the children looked at climate change, their local environment and self portraits of Freda Kahlo to draw inspiration to create their own self portraits.
All 420 pieces of work were judged by a team of professional local artist, John Pawley, Sandy Kendall, Mo Martin and Rosemerry Lawrey to decide the winners. All winners were framed and on display with all a other work available to view in folders within the exhibition.
In a special end of term assembly Mo Martin (custodian of Sara K's work) and Jenna Sabine (curator of the Sara K Gallery and owner of Monkton Arts) presented certificates to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners of each of the 14 classes; as well as framed pictures of their winning art for the winners, and prizes for the over all winners from KS1 and KS2. Many of the children attended the grand opening of Monkton Arts which also marked the official ribbon cutting of the Sara K Gallery on 27th July 2019.
