The art school at Marlborough looks different. When I was a pupil here in the mid-2000s, conceptual art was cool. Back then, art meant spray-painting a canvas with neon graffiti or making a sculpture out of rubbish. The art school would have been covered in all sorts of zany efforts at abstraction. What there would not have been, however, was much portraiture. And certainly not the abundance of remarkable portraits that now fill the walls. Something has changed.
This newfound enthusiasm for portraiture among Marlborough’s pupils is, in large part, thanks to a 25-year-old portrait artist, Grace Payne-Kumar, the college’s artist in residence since September 2023. For many years, Marlborough has hosted resident artists, encouraging them to pursue their own work while also inspiring and teaching students.
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