This outdoor mosaic couch sculpture was created by students in Year 8 from Covenant College during Term 4 of 2013.

They worked with their Visual Arts teacher, Mrs Leah Grant, the Product Design Technology teacher, Mr Stephen Scott and myself, towards creating a collaborative sculpture in an ‘Op Art’ style that draws upon a range of contemporary and traditional skills, techniques and processes to be displayed within the College grounds as a permanent artwork.

This followed on from their prior studies in Year 7 where they learnt extensively about sculpture and viewing works ‘in the round’, creating a limestone sculpture for the College grounds with myself.

They combined their knowledge of Op Art and sculpture from these previous units and applied them to the design and creation of the couch sculpture.

Each student contributed to the construction and design of the frame that was initially stripped back and disassembled, built up with timber and fibre glassed. In focus groups, they designed contrasting patterns for each surface.

These patterns were transferred onto the couch that was mosaicked with black and white tiles, reflecting the illusionistic work of focus artist Bridget Riley.

Students were required to develop many new skills and work cooperatively together in order to create this amazing artwork, that started as a seemingly impossible vision many years earlier.

- The pictures below show the building stages of the Mosaic Couch