‘Thank goodness for Artweeks,” says Sami Cohen, Principal of d’Overbroecks College, which is sponsoring the festival for the third year running. He sees the festival as a vibrant celebration of Oxfordshire’s arts and crafts.

Once again, d’Overbroecks College joins forces with Leckford Place to exhibit a wide range of work by current and former students, parents and staff, as well as work by winners of an art competition they are running in conjunction with a several local primary schools.

To advertise the exhibition, organisers have used a fantastic oil painting by one of their upper sixth art students, Flo Amey, who has created a superb and very colourful painting of a swimmer diving into a pool. It is called Diving into Artweeks and will be on show, on May 16 and 17 with the hundreds of other pieces that make up the school’s exhibition.

Flo’s father, the sculptor Paul Amey, will be showing his work too, which includes a very splendid bronze giraffe and a lively crab (pictured), also in bronze. He is particularly proud of the fact he can display his work alongside his daughters.

Students from year eight, aged 12 to 13, have worked hard to come up with an amazing collection of self-portraits painted on a circular canvas in acrylics. These are a splendid example of what youngsters of this age can produce when motivated. The year nine students have created a terrific collection of Escher-inspired pots, which they have painted in black-and-white. They have also painted a collection of abstract works, which mimic the style of their favourite artists. Some reflect the influence of Matisse, some display a hint of Vincent van Gogh, and others follow the lines of Picasso. They are quite inspirational and a credit to the young people who created them.

The pictures are on square canvases, which will be photographed after the show, enlarged and framed, then placed on permanent display at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Further information about this exhibition, which takes place at Leckford Place School, Oxford, can be found in the free Artweeks brochure – just look for site number 187.