A pupil from Grange Academy in Kempston with Autism and speech and language delay has been nicknamed the school’s very own Picasso thanks to his artistic talent.
Aneyk Aragon is in Year 4 and has produced a collection of spectacular abstract art pieces throughout lockdown.
Catherine Assink, Headteacher at Grange said: “Whilst academic progress is of course important we also have a duty of care to ensure that our families and pupils are well mentally.
“During lockdown we have supported families in different ways and at the beginning of the first national lockdown, Anekys’ family collected art supplies from the school to help support their son’s passion for art and painting.
“We were thrilled to see the art that he created during lockdown and we now call him our ‘Grange Picasso’.
Catherine explained that the school encouraged all their pupils to see out the extraordinary and that they had worked closely with Aneyk’s parents to support his artistic endeavours.
“Pupils with autism are incredibly well supported by the school so for us to be seeing this kind of work is kudos to the excellent support Aneyk and his peers are getting,” she said.
Art is not a new hobby for Aneyk, who has been painting since he was old enough to crawl.
His father, David, said: “Aneyk is never without paint – during the first lockdown, paint was impossible to buy for the first three months.
“When the supplies school had given us ran out, we had to use our own creativity to ensure he had the paints that he needed. This included using flour and water as the base along with colours that we took from felt tip pens, food colourings and more.”
But he’s not just limited to painting. Mindu, Aneyk’s mum said: “He has an amazing ability to insert and manipulate shapes in Microsoft Word, creating beautiful drawings of his favourite cartoon characters. He also loves to draw on different iPad drawing apps.”
“Aneyk loves mixing colours to create new ones. He seems to have a colour in his mind and keeps trying until he gets it spot on.
“He also loves to pour paints onto different surfaces to see how it looks and how the colours blend into each other. If it can be seen or touched, it deserves to have paint poured over it.”
Mindu, a photographer, said: “It was actually a mesmerising watching Aneyk doing this and me being a photographer, the only way to capture this was by taking a photo.”
Unfortunately, Aneyk was unavailable for comment … presumably he was signing a contract with the Tate Modern.
For further information on how to purchase any of his artwork please contact Grange Academy or visit his website.
