Visual Arts
Congratulations to our Art Captain for 2023, Sienna Apted!
The Art Department were thrilled with the high standard of written submissions from all applicants and impressed by their eloquence and confidence in personal interviews.
Every applicant was brimming with ideas! We encourage students to take up the opportunity to get involved in any way that they can, articulating and exploring their love of the Arts beyond the classroom. We especially invite all recent applicants to put their name forward to be on the Art Committee that Sienna will form. We can dream big and achieve so much with a strong, united team approach.
Congratulations to Sienna! We know she will be a calm, organised and creative Captain.
Lilli Stromland: Onkaparinga Show
Many of you will know Lilli Stromland, Old Girl (Class of 2012) and currently the Visual Arts Department’s respected Drawing tutor. Lilli is a graduate of the National Art School in Sydney, with a major in painting. Since that time, she has been a finalist in a number of prestigious awards and prizes including being a 2020 finalist in the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. Her work has been selected in the Salon de Refuses, Portia Geach Memorial Award and the emerging artist section of the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize.
Lilli has an exhibition that opens next week 8 November 6-8pm at 38 Botany Road, Alexandria (next to the Alexandria Laundrette before Henderson Road).
You can view the works here.
The exhibition continues 9 Wednesday to 19 Saturday November 11am-6pm.
Howard Tanner Drawing Prize
The Howard Tanner Drawing Prize entries are currently on show in JF1. We were thrilled with the submissions from across all year groups and the breadth of practice and care shown in developing these works is impressive. Please feel welcome to drop by to view the works up until the end of week 5. The Award Recipient for 2023 is announced at Speech night by Ms Allum.
Year 10 Exhibition
Exhibition opening this afternoon, Thursday 3 November, 3.15 to 4.15 pm
Exhibition continues until end of week 5 (open during school hours)
On Friday 12 August, Year 10 Visual Arts elective students travelled to Cockatoo Island by ferry for a day of photography on this historically significant island. We were fortunate to spend the whole day exploring and photographing the island. This was part of our practical artmaking in class where we were challenged with creating a photographic body of work using image and text (inspired by the main aspects of Dadaism – and Postmodernism) that investigated and explored Cockatoo Island. We were given complete creative freedom on the subject matter, theme, and overall aesthetic of the work as long as it related to and depicted Cockatoo Island.
In preparation for the much anticipated excursion, in our Visual Arts Process diaries we wrote a statement/proposal outlining what our artistic intentions would be when at Cockatoo Island, and researched a range of photographic artists such as Pat Brassington, Bill Henson, Trent Parke, Brassai, Andreas Gursky, William Yang and Man Ray annotating their images, looking at their different photographic techniques such as compositional devices, use of lighting, depth of field, viewpoints, and the structural and conceptual properties we could take inspiration from. Lastly, we had to decide how text would accompany our images. Our teachers explained that we didn’t have to stay with the original proposal we had written at the beginning of this practical task, as a key element of the artmaking process is change as we develop new ideas.
Many chose to focus on one of the 4 main eras of Cockatoo Island’s history as a theme to base and direct their photography – the First Nations history, the convicts, and either the reformatory and/or industrial school or the maritime era. Cockatoo Island is the homeland of the Wallumedegal, Wangal, Cammeraygal and Gadigal Peoples who know it as Wareamah. They were the first visitors on the island and traditionally inhabited it until 1893 when it became a new penal establishment. The site was significantly altered by the Europeans erasing much evidence of the First Nations people. From 1839 to 1869, exiled convicts endured harsh living conditions and backbreaking manual labour to help with the development of the young colony. In 1871, the vacant prison buildings were repurposed for an industrial training school for girls and a separate reformatory for young women. The school rooms and housing are preserved on the upper section of the island. The Maritime era lasted from 1857-1991; it contained a ship building and ship repair facility that contributed significantly to Australia’s maritime affairs at that time. There are still multiple docks, warehouses, and machinery on the lower section of the island which is evidence of this maritime era.
After uploading our photos to our laptops, we eagerly started photoshopping and editing our photos to our desired aesthetic. Our teachers taught us to play with saturation, scale, adding text, rotation, shadows, cropping, layers and all the inbuilt features in Adobe Photoshop. This allowed us to modify compositional aspects of the photos taken on Cockatoo Island to further expand and develop the theme we had chosen to illustrate within our artworks. While working online with Photoshop as well as after the stages of printing, there was also opportunity for text to be incorporated. Then we had the opportunity to print our photos on a variety of mediums such as conventional printing paper, matte paper, translucent and glossy. We were able to experiment with the texture of the paper and the size of the photographs, as well as the overall “final look” of the photos by printing our works in different formats and on different types of paper. After printing, some students started collaging, building structures to hang the photos on, cutting up pieces of text from newspaper or making clay forms to create installations. Therefore, there is an amazing diversity of artworks, and the atmosphere of these creative practical classes was uplifting and inspiring. We continued experimenting and artmaking until Week 1 of term 4, and our works are currently exhibited in JF1.
Sophia Chu and Bridgette Dunlop
Year 10
This week’s banner is from Amanda Aroney’s submission for this exhibition.
National Art School Summer School 2023 is open for bookings!
Week 1: Monday 9 – Friday 13 January 2023
Week 2: Monday 16 – Friday 20 January 2023
NAS is gearing up to usher in the new year with the launch of their 2023 Summer School Short Courses! Develop and expand your creative skills in 5-day intensive January Summer Schools, held on-campus at NAS in Darlinghurst. Study for one or two weeks and choose from a variety of courses offered in the disciplines of Ceramics, Drawing, Painting, Photomedia, Printmaking and Sculpture.
Year 11’s moving into Year 12 are especially encouraged to apply. Feedback on these courses is always so positive so if you are available and are wishing to seek out some creative learning and acquisition or extension of skills over the Summer break, we highly recommend you get involved!
Heidi Jackson
Head of Visual Arts
