BBC Southampton's Abbie Collins met the students at the exhibition's opening.

Second year A-level Fine Art students from Itchen College have devised a unique exhibition at Southampton City Art Gallery. Conflicting Interpretations opened with a special private view on November 3rd and featured work that the teenagers have created themselves.

Click here to see our gallery of the students and their artwork

The students selected artwork from the 3,500 items in the gallery's collection and, using their own creative skills, produced works of art in response to those pieces.

Julie Mitchell with her work entitled Zoom In

They took into account the aesthetics, meaning and their own personal impression of the originals. To show the relationship between the two pieces, their work is on display next to the artwork they took inspiration from.

As well as getting their creative juices flowing, the students had to put in some research to write the information that accompanies each piece. They also curated the exhibition themselves.

The works they have chosen range greatly, moving from Surrealist collages to 19th Century oils on canvas. As a result, the student's work is incredibly varied.

Lucy Munday with her piece Metroplita Misplaced

17 year old Lucy Munday hopes to study Fine Art at Southampton Institute. She chose L.S. Lowry's The Canal Bridge to inspire her piece Metroplita Misplaced.

"I found his work really interesting. I was inspired by all the bright colours and his use of the crowd made it really exciting. I saw how he used the townscapes where he grew up so I decided to show where I grew up and what's important to me living in Southampton - like West Quay for shopping. Stuff like that."

Lucy used wood and card to build up layers in the piece and scanned images of Lowry's famous 'matchstick men' which she transported into her own work.

Sam Feerick and Mike Davies chose to work from a piece by Brazilian Surrealist Eileen Agar entitled The Object Lesson. Their creation, Jesus Was A Gorilla, was made using wood, rope, card and acrylics. I dared to ask Mike the meaning behind it:

Sam and Mike with their work Jesus Was A Gorilla (top) and The Object Lesson by Eileen Agar (bottom)

"It's to do with the main conflict between the Christian faith and Darwin's theory of evolution. If Jesus had come from Darwin's theory then he would have been a monkey! It's just about people's arguments about how we came to be." So what does Mike think about having his artwork on display? "It's different, it's cool!"

On a more traditional note, Jess Cripps took her inspiration from the delicate life drawings of Augustus John. "I saw the drawings down in the vaults and I went to life drawing class at college and kept practising drawing different figures."

This will come in handy for Jess as she hopes to study Fashion at university. I wondered who her favourite artists were: "I love the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Burne-Jones, who has a exhibition in this gallery."

Jess Cripps with her piece Figure Study II

The work will go towards the students' A-Level results. Itchen College's Art and Photography A-Level results are among the highest in the country. The college's art teacher, Rose Fudio, was there to see the fruits of the teenagers' hard work: "I would love to do this again. I think it's been really worth while, a real boost in confidence and the students should be really proud. I'm really proud."

Tim Craven, Curator at Southampton City Art Gallery, also expressed his praise for the students as well as the staff at Itchen College during his speech at the opening event:

"From a gallery point of view, Conflicting Interpretations has proved an excellent and successful project. We've had a great partner in Itchen College's Art Department. The students have responded magnificently to the challenge of curating their own exhibition based on the works in this gallery's collection."

This is the second collaboration between the gallery and local students. Last autumn students from Bellemoor and Hounsdown Secondary Schools were involved in a project called Observation Station which was highly praised by visitors and Southampton's Education sector.