THROUGH CHILDREN’S EYES
Art, seen from a little lower down.
An exhibition created with children, for children — bringing together artworks, discoveries and the things they make after looking at art in their own way.
Come down to their level.
Painting made by a child during French Holiday program April 2019
A DIFFERENT WAY OF LOOKING
What happens when children meet art before anyone tells them what to think?
They notice things adults sometimes miss.
A strange colour.
A face in the background.
Something funny.
Something frightening.
A shape that reminds them of something completely different.
Through Children’s Eyes begins there: with looking, noticing, asking questions and allowing an artwork to lead somewhere unexpected.
There is no single right way to see it.
FROM LOOKING TO MAKING
Then they make something of their own.
Children encounter an artist, a movement or a particular artistic world, then experiment in response.
They are not asked to reproduce a painting or imitate an artist’s style.
A colour might stay with them.
A composition. A strange object. An idea.
Or perhaps nothing recognisable at all.
The point is not to see whether they can make the same thing.
It is to discover where looking takes them.
THE EXHIBITION
And then the work leaves the table.
The children’s pieces become part of an exhibition alongside some of the artworks, artists and ideas they encountered along the way.
Not as copies. Not as exercises.
As responses.
The exhibition allows visitors to move between what the children saw and what they made from it.
Sometimes the connection is obvious.
Sometimes you have to look a little longer.
AT CHILDREN’S EYE LEVEL
The height of the room changes too.
The exhibition is installed with children in mind.
Works are displayed at children’s eye level, allowing younger visitors to look closely without having to peer upwards into an adult-sized gallery.
Labels, images and ways of exploring the exhibition are designed to invite curiosity rather than tell children what they are supposed to see.
Adults are welcome, of course.
They may simply have to bend down.
TWO LANGUAGES IN THE ROOM
French and English, side by side.
Through Children’s Eyes is a bilingual exhibition.
French remains part of the creative world the children have been working in, while English allows families and visitors from the wider Perth community to enter the exhibition too.
The art doesn’t need translating.
The room just needs to make space for everyone.
THE CONNECTION WITH ART IN FRENCH
Where does the work come from?
Some of the work shown in Through Children’s Eyes is created during Art in French, the French Holiday Program’s three-day exploration of an artistic movement or world.
Art in French is where children look, talk, experiment and make.
Through Children’s Eyes is where some of that journey becomes visible to everyone else.
NEXT EXHIBITION
Through Children’s Eyes
First edition · Surrealism
25–30 January 2027
Perth
The first exhibition follows the December Art in French program, where children will explore the strange, playful and unexpected world of surrealism.
Works by children will sit alongside the artists, images and ideas that started the exploration.
EXHIBITION DETAILS →(Soon)
Look closely.
Then look again.
You might see something they saw first.
COME AND SEE → (soon)