Visual Arts
This week’s banner is an extract from HSC student Hannah Weekes. Hannah is exploring the potential of water as a subject for abstract painting. Year 12 are well underway with a superb collection of works that reveal an exciting depth of response to ideas, issues and themes. They are working with focus and energy towards their exhibition in August and we are impressed by the range of inimitable works they are developing and resolving.
It’s been another exciting and rewarding term in the Art classrooms with many beautiful conclusions to students’ creative and intellectual investigations exhibited in this week’s edition.
Year 7 will soon begin to bring home their delightful portraiture works as they come down from the Art classroom walls. Many students have already created an edition of lino prints and are moving on to ceramic sculpture and digital media in the coming semester. We look forward to taking Year 7 students to the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes at the AGNSW in semester 2. A sample of their paintings and drawings are exhibited below.
We are pleased to present a range of Year 8 works based on a “sense of place” that were made in conjunction with their studies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practices earlier this year. Year 8 have worked in a multidisciplinary way to create works that reflect their own connection to place. Their experiences have ranged from watercolour painting, poetry, printmaking, collage, to photography. They are now exploring digital media and ceramics with a focus on both traditional and contemporary forms of Asian Art.
Year 9 have concluded their semester by working with industry expert and commercial and fine arts photographer, Chris Gleisner. Chris was the photographer in residence at SCEGGS during 2020 and her photographic work is showcased in the beautiful book that captured life at School last year so memorably and poignantly. Chris designed a workshop for students to explore and learn about features of camera craft and accompanied excursions to the UTS Business School to photograph the architectural work of Frank Gehry. Students have been learning about Gehry’s practice alongside broader investigations into architects, architectural styles and key points in Architecture throughout art history.
Hannah Guest writes:
Throughout the excursion I enjoyed the difficulty of finding ways to capture the building in a unique and distinctive way.
And Claudia Demos states:
The Chau Chak building by Frank Gehry is an exceptionally impressive modernist structure. The design was inspired from a tree house layout, but the building itself mirrors a brown paper bag. Gehry has purposefully utilised a flexible design, with varying dynamics, to embody a truly inspirational, innovative and imaginative site, to motivate people, and enlighten learning and educational areas.
When entering the Frank Gehry building, I was amazed by the juxtaposition between the curvaceous interior walls and the sharpness of the fragmented bricks that formed the exterior walls!
Bianca Rozsa
Year 10 visited the Richard Bell retrospective at the MCA last week and were particularly attentive and contemplative. His works can be challenging and confronting yet are important in their response to and reassessment of Australian history. Richard Bell is a member of the Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Goreng Goreng communities and works across video, painting, installation and text to pose provocative, complex and humorous challenges to our preconceived ideas of Aboriginal art, as well as addressing contemporary debates around identity, place and politics. This was a great way to introduce Year 10 to some of the theory content we study next semester as we examine art practice that is conceptual and intent on addressing ideas concerning but not limited to, gender equity, war, civil rights, the media and cultural identity. We are so fortunate to be able to access Sydney’s galleries and museums within our lessons and to explore these with our engaged and inquisitive Art students.
Amelia Hush writes:
Going to Richard Bell’s exhibition was an amazing experience that really opened my eyes to the power of art. His pieces hold extreme political and spiritual significance, the themes beautifully displayed in a variety of ways, using letters, colour, photographs, videos, Indigenous art and/or images from the media which on a surface level are appealing, but when closely examined, confront you with the subtext that often critiques the reality of Australian society, a poignant reminder of how we must diminish the harmful prejudices that have lasted for centuries.
Year 11 have mounted an exhibition at School based on Objects and have created a diverse range of individual responses to this subject. This exhibition is another fine example of student research and keen material and conceptual investigation as they develop their own unique bodies of work. A sample of their works is shown here:
Katrina Collins, former Head of Art at SCEGGS, has an exhibition opening this weekend at the Shop Gallery in Glebe. All members of the SCEGGS community are warmly invited to attend to view her latest works. This will be a lovely way to celebrate the beginning of the holidays… Katrina’s show is open from Friday 18- Sunday 20 June, 11 am to 5 pm. The Official Opening is Saturday 19 June from 1 to 5 pm.
Preview her works here: https://www.katrinacollinspainting.com/gallery-index#/the-shop-gallery-glebe-2021/
Applications for Co-curricular Drawing, Darkroom Photography and Painting will open in Week 1 of Term 3. Please lookout for an email from Michaela Gleave to sign up!
Visual Arts assistant and contemporary artist, Michaela Gleave, invites the SCEGGS community to participate in a public art project she is currently working on as part of Illuminate Adelaide.
The project is called “Messages of Hope, Messages of Love”. Taking the form of a collaborative poem executed in lights, the work is composed of messages submitted by the public during an open call period. Selected messages are translated into Morse Code and beamed up into the sky by a ring of lights, this time installed on a rooftop in the Adelaide CBD. A live web stream with text translation of the Morse Code accompanies the event, allowing the public to communicate with loved ones interstate and overseas. It is conceived as a timely and poetic response to the strange reality of these times and encourages messages of love, hope, resilience, strength and compassion.
The project premiered at the Art Gallery of NSW last year, and this iteration is being presented in collaboration with the band The Avalanches, with whom Michaela will construct the “poem”.
The open call for messages closes this Friday.
Messages can be submitted here: https://www.illuminateadelaide.com/events/messages-of-hope-messages-of-love
Documentation of the Art Gallery of NSW installation can be found here, and there’s a short video about the work here.
We hope you get to go and see some great exhibitions around Sydney and interstate if you are fortunate enough to be travelling. We recommend the Salon de refusés at SH Ervin gallery, Thea Anamara Perkins at N.Smith Gallery, Idris Murphy at King St Gallery on William, and the National at the MCA, Carriageworks and the AGNSW. We look forward to hearing all about your Art adventures in Semester 2!
Happy holidays to all from the Visual Arts Department.
Heidi Jackson
Head of Visual Arts
The State Final of Rostrum Voice of Youth was held on Saturday afternoon June 12. SCEGGS finalists Nicola Allen (Senior Division) and Catherine Park (Junior Division). After winning the Regional Final the girls had two weeks to write a new speech for the final round.
Anna Slack in Year 4 had a fantastic run last Thursday 10 June, at the CIS Cross Country Carnival at Eastern Creek Raceway. Anna finished the race with a sprint to overtake two competitors gaining 24th place out of 100 participants. This is a great achievement for Anna. Congratulations, we are very proud of you.
