What's Happening in Art?
On Wednesday, the 22nd of March, Year 12 Visual Arts students embarked upon an exciting excursion, travelling by train to the Museum of Contemporary Art and Art Gallery of NSW. First visiting the MCA, in the morning at Circular Quay to engage with a variety of contemporary works on display in both a gallery context and in a public arena.
Our visit to the MCA began with a welcome to country, where we viewed powerful contemporary pieces by artist Daniel Boyd, Brook Andrew and Vincent Namatjira. These works explored concepts of identity, sovereignty, pride, resilience, and connection to country located in the entry of the MCA.
In our workshop Unpacking Unseen Images we viewed and unpacked key pieces in both the MCA collection: Perspective on Place focussing on works relating to land, mapping and environmental change and Eight Artists an exhibit featuring major works by eight Australian artists, including a new commission.
This experience allowed students to gain valuable understanding of both the artists who created the pieces their practice, the artworks themselves, and the conceptual meaning behind the construction of these diverse works.
In the afternoon, we travelled to the AGNSW to view Art Express the HSC showcase of astounding bodies of work produced by the 2022 cohort of high achieving Visual Art HSC student submissions. This exciting exhibition included artworks in 12 expressive forms and a sampling of Visual Arts Process Diaries. Making our way through the gallery, student's viewed a collection of traditional and contemporary spaces, igniting the creativity of all.
The excursion was highly beneficial to students and many were a buzz throughout the day inspired by new ideas in the development of their bodies of work. This is key when creating an artwork; an artist must have an open mind, and must be willing to adopt new techniques in the pursuit of great work. The excursion was intended to help guide students in their theoretical and practical studies of Visual Arts and was certainly successful in doing so, through the different elements and art that was encountered on the day.
In Term One, Year 7 Visual Arts students have been exploring the elements of art (line, shape, form, colour, value, texture and space) and principles of design to further build upon their knowledge and skills from primary school in order to create their own artistic compositions. Students have been hard at work for a number of weeks experimenting with materials supplied in their art kits and refining their technique to develop works inspired by their study of artists Wassily Kandinsky, Sonia Delauney and Bridget Riley.
Below are some of their wonderful works. A great effort by Year 7 this term!
Ms Tree