Senior Visual Arts Excursion

Year 11 and Year 12 Visual Arts students had the opportunity to explore the ArtExpress Exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. The exhibition is put on yearly to showcase exemplar HSC Major Works from all expressive forms. By having the opportunity to engage with the exhibition students are able to recognise the high standards of a HSC Major work and can gain inspiration for their own artmaking practice by discussing curatorial decisions, techniques and processes.

The students also had the opportunity to view the permanent collections in both the north and south buildings of the gallery to inform their understanding of art criticism and history. By allowing the students to interact with a gallery space they are also provided the opportunity to recognise what the art world looks like outside of the classroom and how it connects to not only their own world but the world around them. 

The Senior Visual Arts ArtExpress excursion was an opportunity for both Year 11 and 12 to be surrounded by Band 6 artworks gathered from around NSW. This excursion allowed us to become immersed in the artworks giving us a valuable benchmark for our Major Works. The ArtExpress, as well as many of the other works throughout the art gallery, allowed me to reflect on what makes art ‘good’, being exposed to such a wide variety of works and mediums allowed me to pick and choose what I liked and what I felt was a well-executed idea. From this, I was able to gain a newfound appreciation not just for the works but the stories/ideas behind them which drove and inspired the artist to create it. Having this opportunity to attend ArtExpress this year has greatly helped me in understanding what the markers of the HSC value when marking the bodies of work, which I can use to improve my own body of work as I develop it throughout the year. The overall experience I believe was valuable not only to my art-making practice but for us as artists as we can fully experience the artworks as the artist intended.

Bryson Mitchell – Year 12