Enter the 2011
‘Art in Heaven’
Competition
Pupils from
Perryfields
School,
Sandwell, made
tiles on the
theme of justice
in the style of
Keith Haring’s
art
This presentation invites to
you make an art work on
one of our five themes.
The National Association of
Teachers of RE will give
prizes to the winners.
See more details on our web
art gallery at
www.natre.org.uk
What is ‘Art in Heaven’?
 ‘Art in Heaven is an annual competition run since
2004 for pupils in RE that gives you a chance to be
creative and imaginative in RE. It is all about
spiritual ideas and your skills
 There is a wonderful web art gallery. Last year
about 30 000 entered, and some of the best are on
show.
 If you enter this year, perhaps your picture will be
on the gallery next time. Have a look, and choose
some favourites of your own from the gallery.
 Teachers and pupils are warmly invited to join in
with their own ‘Art in Heaven’. The closing date is
31st July. The entry form can be downloaded from
www.natre.org.uk
5 themes to choose from
• Art in Heaven has five themes for 2011. Your teacher
will choose a theme with you for you to enter. Have a
look at some work from each theme now.
• The themes are:
– Spiritual Words
– Stories of Truth?
– Journeys
– Festive visions
– God: Who? Where? How? If?
Spiritual Words
• What words are the most spiritual for you? Peace? Promise? Truth?
Love? Justice? Holiness? Prayer? Trust? Humanity? Unity?
• For some people, a verse from a sacred text will be the starting
point for their ideas about spiritual words, whether it is Qur’an,
Bible or Guru Granth Sahib.
• For others, a word has become spiritual because of its beauty or
impact.
• Pupils might start with the words here, but winning work on this
theme will explore the images and symbols that make the words
powerful and spiritual, and enquire into the reasons why some
words have the power to change the world.
Spiritual Words.
Children at All Saints
Wokingham had a
whole week about
spirituality, and learned
what the word means.
This display of oak
leaves from hundreds
of children tells the
viewer what spiritual
ideas the children
developed.
Henry, in Year 6 at Christ
Church Primary Bradford on
Avon, chose ‘Light within’ as
his spiritual words.
“What I like best about my
work is the man in black, it
represents you, the light
comes from within you and
spreads out. It also comes
from outside from the
candles, these represent
things that inspire you and
give you light, your family or
friends, what you believe in. I
used oil pastels to make my
design as they made the
really bright colours I
wanted.”
William goes to Ralph Sadlier Middle School. His
spiritual words are from the Bible.
Natacha is 13 years, and from Pool
Business and Enterprise College.
Her spiritual words are ‘Peace’
and ‘Respect’
“I have used the Ying and Yang
symbol at the centre because it
represents peace and I feel with
respect for everything comes
peace. I have used it for the black
and white to show respect for
different cultures and the respect
between them. The owls show
respect for animals and the flowers
around the outside to show respect
for everything on earth. The blue
strip in the middle represents
people’s feelings . The colour blue
is often related to sadness and’
feeling blue’ but it also shows
happiness and optimism ‘blue
skies’. I think that it is important
for peace making to respect
peoples’ feelings and not judge
people.”
Open Mind
“We designed these t-shirts
to represent being open
minded. We thought if we
did this on a t-shirt it would
show people that you
should be opened minded.
We thought about what it
would take to be open
minded. The things we
came up with on our t-shirt
were loving each other
which are represented by
the giant love heart. The
different symbols represent
different cultures and that
we are all equal even if we
believe in different
cultures. The hands
represent respect and
peace. Being open minded
means you can have your
opinion but you still have to
respect other people’s
opinions.”
Victoria and Samantha,15
Love is the most spiritual word. “My work is called ‘All
you need is love’ It shows a man and a woman getting
married and promising to be together, in a place of worship,
a place to show you love someone. I got this idea as we
listened to Beatles love songs before starting our project. I
think without love, life is not worth celebrating.”
Leah, 12, Flixton Girls High School
God:
Who? Where? How? If?
•
•
•
This competition has often asked: where is God? Who is God? Does God
speak?
This year, all these questions can be part of the theme, and the new
focus is on your questions for God: Where are you, God? What do you
want me to do? Do you love us all? What are you like? Why are you
invisible? How can we find you? Why can’t I find you? Where were you
when evil happened? Where are the signs of your love? Are you real, or
made up?
What questions would you like to ask God, and how might a person who
knows everything and loves everyone reply? This theme is just as much
for atheists and agnostics as for believers in different faiths: the atheist
may say: ‘Where is God? Nowhere at all.’
Jumping up to God,
Ethan, Age 6
• “Up in heaven
there is God. All of
these are planets
and God made
them. I am
jumping up to give
God a flower from
the hill. God looks
just like me.”
Matthew, from Monkton Pre Prep
School is 6. He says: “God is
above the rainbow, and the sky
is blue. God is at the top,
running in the clouds above the
rainbow.”
Who is
God?
Alix, Annabel
and Olivia (13)
have used
Islamic rules to
create this
image of the
Islamic
understanding
of Allah. They
think God, for
Muslims, was in
the words of the
revelation of
the Holy Qur’an.
Tom, Billy, Joe and Kathryn are 13
From John Taylor High School in
Staffordshire
“God: Why?
Our piece shows the idea of people
drowning into the earth, leaving life
as they used to know it. It shows
hands and faces reaching towards
what they hope will bring help, to
save them from the genocide and
the terrible images that crawl in
their minds.
We were trying to represent all the
pain and suffering that was
overlooked by so many people
during the Rwanda genocide, so we
showed the idea of Rwandans with
their hands reaching out for help,
but none is received from military
rescue forces. To us, this shows that
God was not there to help the Tutsis
so they had to pray and beg for their
lives – this may have brought them
hope but it did not save many of
them. Their hands are reaching out,
trying to locate God, but he is just
out of reach.
The Personality of God
Anastasia (13)
Waldegrave School, Twickenham
The tree in the bottom right of the painting
represents that with God you grow: the
side facing him has leaves, the other side
is bare and empty.
The three crosses show how I interpret
Jesus: I used glitter glue for the crown, to
show that he is a king. White paint
symbolizes that he is pure and perfect.
Dark clouds signify problems in our lives,
but although we don't know what God
looks like, I think we know his personality. I
think God is loving, welcoming,
approachable and quick to forgive.
The usual stereotypical view of God is an
old white man. I have shown God's hands,
one like a woman's, one black. God tries to
show us who he is, through the bible and
our own religious experiences. The words
around the hands of God remind me what I
believe he is like.
Festive Visions
• Divali and Hannukah, Eid and Easter, Red Nose Day and
New Year, the festivals of life erupt in colour, splendour
and community in every faith and any life.
• Pupils might choose the festival they celebrate, or the
one they are learning about and express its key
moment, or its big idea with colour and a viewpoint all
their own.
• Festivals are all about vision: the past is visualised and
remembered while the future is seen in a visionary way.
What is your festive vision? Fireworks, or peace? Light,
love or All Hallows Eve?
A Day to Remember When Jesus Died
Lauren, Age 7
“Jesus is crying on
the cross. I have
painted him in bright
colours. The sky is
very dark blue.”
A Day to Remember: Eid Al Fitr
Usman, Age 8
Everyone smiles, and there are presents
for the children. We eat and drink because
Ramadan is over.
Festive Visons: Easter
The children of
Alexander Hosea
Community School in
South Gloucestershire
created Easter
Banners, one from
each class, to show
their understanding of
the celebrations.
Remembering Divali
Jemma, 14
From rangoli patterns and
story telling to the possibility
of joyful celebration or a
changed life this year, Divali
celebrates light and the ways
it triumphs over the
darkness.
Journeys
• Religious texts are full of journeys: from Eden or
Nazareth, to Makkah, Bethlehem, Tarsus, Heaven or
Nirvana.
• ife is seen as a journey in many religions. If life is a
journey, then what are the milestones, signposts,
guidebooks and service stations on the way? What
speeds you up or slows you down? What are the
destinations? In this theme, pupils winning work will
develop great creative ideas about journeys of faith
and life, expressing their own ideas as maps, pathways,
roads to freedom or random wanderings.
The Path You Follow
Amber, Warwickshire
Age 9
My name is Amber and I am 9
years old. This canvas is called
'My Spiritual life: The Path you
follow.' It is a painting about bad
and good. There is a path
running through it and this is the
path you follow through your
spiritual life. You can either
choose to be on the dark and
thorny side, or on the happy,
bright, healthy side.
Saffron,13, writes about the journey
into our own minds.
Freya, 15, from Ridgeway School
explores the journey into her own
spirit.
“I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back
of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
I sat by the river and it made my
life complete.”
Stories of Truth
• Every religion tells stories, but are they true? Do they
tell us the truth? For younger pupils, this theme
involves taking stories they love from religious
traditions and expressing the key moments or ideas
artistically.
• Start with any story: Jacob or Moses, the Guru or the
Buddha, the Prophet or the Christ, stories told of
creation, parable, paradox or meaning.
• Older pupils might add a question mark and use the
stories of faith as starting points for their own ideas
about truth. Or they might explore or question atheist
or scientific stories as well as those that come from
faith.
Stories of Truth
“I like Jonah because it
shows you can't get away
from God he is everywhere.”
Demi Smith Age 6 goes to
Havannah Primary School
Abigail, 12, from Nottingham
Bluecoat School painted Guru
Nanak.
“God is not a Hindu, God is
not a Muslim. The Guru’s
stories teach millions of Sikh
people how to live, to treat
others equally, to worship God
in truth and to serve humanity
by choice. Look for God in the
eyes of the Guru.”
Kulsum Basharat, 13, from
Beardwood Humanities
College
“I thought of the idea of
symbols in the water because
I wanted to show them as all
coming from the same place
because no religion is better
than any other. You can even
imagine the peaceful sounds
as the symbols calmly splash
into the water along with
birds tweeting. I have added
an image of the Buddha
because I feel that the
Buddha represents peace to
me and it makes my spiritual
space a place for meditationthe waterfall of peace.”
Hannah Downing is 15.
She painted the story of
the first temptation of
Eve
“This piece is a
modernised version of the
Adam and Eve story. It
refers to the modern
everyday struggles to
overcome sins such as
lust and greed. I have
included imagery of
temptation, the woman,
or ‘Eve’, taking a bite out
of the apple. It also has
the representation of
greed with the sweets
and piles of money.
There is also a referral to
lust with the inclusion of
a kiss and lips. I wanted
to capture the mystery of
the story of Adam and Eve
and also makes it relevant
to the modern age.”
And what about you?
 You have seen a lot of examples of the brilliant
entries to the Art in Heaven competition.
 Now think over your own idea, beliefs and skills
 Plan to make a super entry of your own, to send in
before the end of the summer term –closing date is
31st July
 Write a note about how good it is – you can use the
prompts we suggest.
 All the best!
 www.natre.org.uk/spiritedarts Don’t forget - you
can see hundreds of interesting entries and other
winners on the web gallery