Over 100 fine art students from the college were invited by student accommodation provider Unite to participate, and five pieces were commissioned. They will be exhibited in Blithehale Court, Bethnal Green, to celebrate the opening of seven new Unite properties across London this year.

Entries were judged by Central Saint Martins Fine Art course directors, Jane Lee and Andrew Watson, as well as Unite’s sales and marketing director, Nathan Goddard. 

The winning artists:

Ewan MacFarlane
Norman Foster
Ewan said: “Instead of painting the Gherkin itself I thought it more interesting to paint its architect Lord Foster.  However I wanted to make reference to the fantastic structural planning that made the building possible. The result is a painting made up of brush strokes but within each stroke a number of shades.”

Rose Stuart Smith
Phyllis Pearlsall
Phyllis Pearlsall created the London’s first A to Z of streets by painstakingly walking every street until she had mapped them all. Rose said: “As maps become available on mobile phones and sat-nav, the A-Z may soon fall out of use and Phyllis’ story will be lost, so I was excited to be given this opportunity to make work that commemorates her. She was, like me, a painter so it seemed fitting that the work should also be a painting.”

Charles Drinkwater
Clara Grant
Charles’ work remembers The Bundle Woman of Bow who created farthing bundles of toys to give to poor children in the early 1900s. Charles said: “I chose Clara Grant because of her amazing actions. For a single woman, during that time, to make such a difference to children’s lives was remarkable. It reaffirms my belief in human kindness.”

Sue Kemp

Inspirational Londoners
Sue said: “The type of people that I think inspire students, are individuals they can relate to, everyday, ordinary people who through creativity, self-belief and hard work have achieved amazing things. I consider the people I have used in my work to be inspirational Londoners.”

Phoebe Mitchell
Peaches and Pixie Geldof

Phoebe said:  “The infamous daughters of rocker Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates are the epitome of cool, trashy, teenage hedonism. They may not be saving the world, or carving out an enviable career…yet, but they can inspire us to enjoy ourselves and to take advantage of our youth.”

I had great fun at Tate Modern a couple of days ago, courtesy of Robert Morris and Bodyspacemotionthings. The interactive installation, which is essentially a playground made out of plywood, rubber and ropes, first opened in 1971, only to be closed four days later because the crowd went a bit bonkers. This time round, Tate has made some health and safety adjustments, so I didn’t see anyone bounce off the walls or get a splinter in the bum.

It was 5pm. The Turbine Hall was filled with a few children, and a lot of adults. I watched a man in an expensive suit proudly make his way along the balancing beam. French tourists queued up to climb the walls. Everyone was giggling at themselves and each other. Even the gallery assistants seemed more relaxed than normal.

My friend Gabi was a willing volunteer

It is possibly the least thought-provoking work to be installed in the Turbine Hall so far, but who’s to say that’s a bad thing?

Turns out the artwork embroiled in bureaucratic battle (see previous post) was by Sri Lankan born artist Roma Tearne. She wanted to wrap a single black or crimson cloth over the eyes of the statue of Eros in Piccadilly, London, but the people in charge refused to give the gallery permission.

Travelling Light is an upcoming Venice Biennale art exhibition organised by a group of women from London’s East End: Sophie Wilson of Pharos Gallery, Chiara Williams and Debra Wilson of WW Gallery. The brief said all artworks had to be posted to the London venue for the first leg of the exhibition before they could continue on their travels to Venice, so the artists (among them Roma Tearne, Kate Davis, Maria Chevska and Oona Grimes) had to work to certain size and weight restrictions.

The travelling exhibition, which will showcase a total of 58 artists, is set to open in London and end up in Venice for the opening week of the Biennale. However, one of the submissions requires public interaction, and Westminster Council has yet to give the women permission to go ahead.

Read more about their efforts to cut through the red tape on their blog and on Twitter, and find further information, including a list of participating artists, on the website.

Photo: Tate

On May 22 this year, Bodyspacemotionthings is coming back to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.

Assistant curator Kathy Noble told the Independent: “It was a landmark moment in Tate’s history. The idea was to encourage viewers to become more aware of their own physicality.”

Concerned art fans will be reassured to learn the new version of the work will be made with contemporary materials instead of the rough wood of the 70s.

This is a sly move on the museum’s part. Bodyspacemotionthings will doubtless be even more popular than Carsten Höller’s slides (2006), if only because of the controversy surrounding Morris’s original.

UBS Openings: The Long Weekend will run for four days from 22 May.

The striking image used to market the exhibition drew me into the Hayward.

Messager uses all manner of materials – soft toys, stuffed animals, fabrics, photographs and words – to create a feminine, and often strangely beautiful, body of work.

The eyes on this promotional poster turned out to be part of a small series, called My Trophies. Messager covers large-scale photographs of parts of the body in doodles, which are reminiscent of tattoos and children’s book illustrations.

Other works worthy of note:

• Chimaeras – This work meets you at the door, and looks like a spooky nightmare full of evil fairies and bats with human faces.
• My Vows (Mes voeux)- I have seen this before at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and it still impresses me now. Hundreds of photos of body parts are hung together to form a circle. The act of layering up the photos makes the chins, ankles, noses and, yes, boobs, seem like a collection of objects.
• Casino - A sheet of red fabric waves over glowing, aquatic blobs, as if the sea has been turned into a womb. One of the most original works of art I’ve come across.

Annette Messager: The Messengers is on at the Hayward until Monday 25 May.

Read Adrian Searle’s review in the Guardian

The word “FREE” written across the window drew me in, and a friendly receptionist explained that the panorama had been closed for a £3m refurbishment. It has only just reopened to the public.

Inside, a 600 ft-long mural snakes around the walls. According to the exhibition guide, it “contains the iconic historic figures and the significant political and significant events he chronicled in a life spanning decades.”

Feliks Topolski was born in Warsaw in 1907 and in 1933 began a series of journeys around Europe. In 1935, he settled in London and became an official war artist. After the war, he travelled to India, Burma, China, Palestine, Syria and Irap. In 1975, he began recording his observations on the panorama.

While the sheer size of the panorama is impressive, and the atmosphere in the exhibition space suitably dark and sombre, I don’t like Topolski’s style of painting. It looks unfinished, and amateur.

And it’s a shame it isn’t easier to make out some of the characters: Winston Churchill, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers, Chairman Mao. Hundreds of influential figures in history.

However, although I didn’t enjoy Topolski’s style, I would recommend a visit to the exhibition. The artist died in London in 1989, but you can still feel his presence in Topolski Century. As if at any given moment, you might stumble across him putting the finishing touches to a portrait of Elvis .

This spring, Rebecca Warren is set to draw in the crowds with her clay sculptures of naked bodies. The londonpaper today accurately described them as ”lusty”. Warren depict women’s bodies as if she were a Viz cartoonist. Our attention is always drawn to particular areas (usually the boobs, or bum).

Rebecca Warren: Helmut Crumb (1998)

Parallels to Degas (Little Dancer Aged 14) are easily drawn, but Warren takes the tradition of sculpting the body and turns it on its head. Her clay is always rough and sharp, removing the smooth sensuality associated with marble and bronze sculptures. They are sexy, but they do not idolise. 

Recently, Charlotte Roche’s book Wetlands caused a furore because it explains, in some detail, one woman’s experience with sex, and with having hemorrhoids. Warren’s sculptures tap into this (shocking) idea of treating women as normal, sexual beings.

Read the Telegraph’s review HERE

Hart’s daughter, Carolyn Williams, came down to Bankside to judge Best Morph in Show. A Morph holding a pink carnation scooped the prize. Williams was particularly please to learn the “flash mob” tribute had been organised via Facebook. She said:

This is exactly what he was all about. Getting people together to join in and make a picture, to make something. It’s so great.

Hart inspired so many children – and parents – to get their hands dirty and start making art. I used to make my own Morphs out of smelly, dry, months-old plasticine, and I think this tribute is a great way to put the new flash mob trend to use.

Click HERE to see a video of the Morph flash mob on the BBC’s website.