Back To School: Explore Kit Poulson’s Permanent Commission Cloud Mountain (Fall To Fly To Flow)

As schools across the UK return for the Autumn term, we are delighted to share documentation of the permanent work made by Kit Poulson for Chester Park Junior School, Bristol, as part of our ongoing Primary/Bristol programme.

Framed within the parameters of Bristol City Council’s innovative public art strategy, Primary/Bristol is the most extensive programme of commissioning contemporary art for school environments in the UK and sees Foreground working with primary schools across socially diverse neighbourhoods throughout Bristol.

Using Chester Park Junior School’s guiding philosophy of overcoming adversity through endeavor, Poulson’s artwork for Chester Park Junior School is comprised of a major painting, Cloud Mountain (fall to fly to flow), and multifunctional bespoke furniture.

Located in Chester Park’s central Learning Zone, which houses the school’s library resources, Cloud Mountain (fall to fly to flow) is reminiscent of Poulson’s other paintings, in which layered representational relationships and the abstract weight of paint come together to create visually complex and otherworldly compositions. The painting sits as a backdrop to Poulson’s multi-coloured moveable units – that both house the school’s library and structure the space – and to the children’s creative explorations in the Learning Zone, providing them with an eclectic visual landscape in which learning through speculative meandering and imaginative inquisition is celebrated.

As part of his commission Poulson also worked directly with boys from the school who struggle with engaging with literacy. The boys travelled to the Fine Art Studios at University of the West of England, Bristol, to experience a day at the art school where Poulson teaches and subsequently Poulson spent a day with them at Chester Park to experience a day in their school. This exchange culminated in a workshop where Poulson explored writing through the creation of characters with the children. The boys found new words to describe themselves through abstract word association and used voice, sound and rhythm to create a riotous, expressionistic musical performance for the whole school, inspired by Poulson’s painting and The Monkey King, an anarchic character Poulson created to inspire the boys’ experiments.

This exchange between the artist and the children has inspired a new sound work by the artist, which will be featured in Foreground’s forthcoming programme.

View full documentation of Kit Poulson’s work for Chester Park Junior School here.