Tuesday 18 September 2007

Art Exhibition Review: Saint Whopp's (CofE) Primary School

I attended the opening night of Saint Whopp's Primary School's annual art exhibition with my son, Monty, hoping that this year's festival of paint would be better than last year's godawful shiteshow. How wrong I was.

Take Tommy Chapstick's work, for example, if you want to see why St Whopp's school is famed for its laughable art. The thick strokes of blue, yellow and red are daubed on the paper in such an amateurish fashion that I initially thought someone had mounted dog vomit on the wall. If only they had. Chapstick (6 and a half) should be ashamed of the drivel to which he is subjecting the world. It was all I could do to stop myself from spitting on the painting, entitled, incidentally, My Mummy.

Suzie Bedknobs (5) is another artist whose work would be better off used as toilet paper in the elephant house at the zoo. While her vivid swirly circles are no doubt intended to evoke the spirit of Kandinsky, instead they evoke the kind of bloated indigestion that one gets after eating too many snails. Maybe the swirls are supposed to be snails. Who can tell? Who cares? Not I.

I have never felt as physically sick when looking at a work of art as when looking at seven year old Robert Fromme's painting, My House. Not even during Pierre Gabstank's installation that comprised of nothing but rotten eggs and deer crap. The shit on the paper was enough to make me shout obscenities at Fromme's father, Bill. Fromme Sr. became angry with me so I resorted to punching him for raising such an untalented child. Then I punched Robert for being so crap.

The only saving grace in the entire show was the wonderful work by brilliant genius child Monty Reviewer. The beauty of the subtle, gradiated colours in his painting, Daddy, were enough to put tears in my eyes. That the hands of the figure in his painting had seven and ten fingers, respectively, was unimportant. The child really caught the essence, the spirit of his subject. This work alone is more than enough to make up for the rest of the dross on display here. So come and see for yourself!

Saint Whopp's Primary School's art exhibition is on until their next art lesson, when the paintings will be sent home with the kids. To discourage nonces, all male visitors to the school must leave their testicles with the bursar.

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