Visual Arts
Bundanon Art Camp 2024
In the first weekend of August, a group of Year 10 and 11 Visual Arts students visited Bundanon with Ms. Dawson, Ms. Tesoriero, and Ms. Willems. Bundanon is a stunning location on the land of the Dharawal and Dhurga Peoples, just outside Nowra on the South Coast. In the Dharawal language, Bundanon means “deep valley.” More recently, it was the residence of Australian Modernist painter Arthur Boyd, who lived there from the 1970s after buying a property then known as “Riversdale” on the banks of the Shoalhaven River. He expanded the existing buildings to create both a home and a studio.
In 1993, Prime Minister Paul Keating announced that the Australian Government would accept Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s donation of Bundanon and establish the Bundanon Trust. Bundanon is both a cultural and environmental treasure, reflecting Boyd’s belief that ‘you can’t own a landscape’ and his desire for others to find inspiration in this extraordinary place.
The Boyd Education Centre, designed by renowned Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, was constructed in 1997 and completed in December 1998. In 2020, plans were unveiled for a new contemporary art museum on Bundanon’s Riversdale property, designed to be light-filled and bushfire-resistant. This new museum, partially integrated into the landscape, is central to Bundanon’s development. It includes a bridge leading to a spacious public plaza near the existing nineteenth-century buildings. The new buildings by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA) have revitalized Arthur Boyd’s iconic Bundanon property, creating an exceptional space to work, stay, and relax.
Below is a reflection from Year 10 students on their experience:
At Bundanon, we immersed ourselves in a unique fusion of art, nature, and history. We explored the expansive area, admiring the breathtaking scenery, and the adorable wombats and kangaroos. We stayed in the Bridge, a minimalist contemporary infrastructure, which provided stunning views of the surrounding bushland. Engaging in a range of creative workshops, we delved into landscape painting, ink drawings and night photography, fostering a deeper appreciation for the arts. We also had an art trivia night on our last night there which was filled with excitement and joy. During our stay, we also visited the Bundanon Art Museum where we saw a variety of landscape works including the return of a series of Shoalhaven landscape paintings by Arthur Boyd for the first time since 1984. Overall, this incredible experience allowed us to not only hone our artistic skills but also to gain a deeper appreciation for the harmony between art, architecture, and nature. It left us feeling creatively rejuvenated, a sense of tranquillity and more attuned to nature!
Melody Li (Year 10)
Over the weekend of 2-4 August, I had the privilege of attending a two-night excursion to Bundanon. It was a trip of true joy, insight, and calm respite as we disconnected from our active, busy school lives and reconnected with nature and each other. Donated to the Australian people by Arthur Boyd in 1993, Bundanon is an artist’s oasis, filled with the purest natural beauty and most innovative architecture. We stayed in The Bridge – a sleek and utterly beautiful treehouse of a structure that overlooked the whirling gums, rising hills, hopping kangaroos and burrowing wombats of Dharawal country. Experiencing the natural world through an artistic lens was integral to our stay in Bundanon, beginning our time there with a silent bushwalk and ending it with an on-plein-air landscape painting workshop to express our observance of nature. Before we began creating our own art, we were given a tour of the Bundanon Art Gallery. Displaying an exhibition entitled Wilder Times, it housed over 60 works by significant Australian artists from the 1980s, including Boyd. Throughout our tour we absorbed the many forms that the landscape takes in the hands of artists, particularly in the postmodern era where ideas of land ownership and environmental protection were actively interrogated.
I once believed that landscapes followed the same rubric of figurative technique. Bundanon shattered this misguided opinion and revealed that art is always a subjective expression of gaze, a manifestation of how differently each of us perceive and experience those whirling gums, rising hills, hopping kangaroos, and burrowing wombats. So, on our last night, as we lounged in the warmth of our communal dining area playing art trivia and eating chocolate mousse, I looked onto the Shoalhaven River and experienced a kaleidoscopic gaze, each turpentine tree and descending shadow constructed by the brushstroke of a friend sat across the room.
Thank you to the brilliant art teachers and learning staff for enabling this experience of true beauty. And thank you, Arthur Boyd, for recognising the necessity of art for everybody.
Georgia O’Keefe (Year 10)
Additionally, we are very proud to announce that Michaela Gleave, practicing artist and our art assistant, was awarded a 2-week artist’s residency at Bundanon during the last school holidays. This valuable experience offered her time and space to engage deeply with the landscape including the production of a series of exquisite, mediated photographs.
Banner photo acknowledgement: Aurelia Cortese
Anita Tesoriero
Head of Visual Arts (Acting)
