The Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art
Senior Visual Art students have the opportunity to enter The Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art. These awards recognise and promote excellence in senior Visual Art education and is open to Queensland state and non-state secondary school students.
This program has been in existence since 1990 with the purpose of raising community awareness of the Visual Arts and the degree of sophistication in concepts, diversity of technical competence, and the high standard of visual art education in Queensland secondary schools.
The program comprises of:
- the submission and judging of three digital photographs of student art work and supporting information
- regional exhibitions showcasing submitted works
- regional workshops for selected students
- an exhibition of awarded works at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Energies Art Exhibition
Energies is an exhibition which showcases artworks created by senior students from across the Gold Coast. Selected student works are professionally framed and presented in a month long exhibition displayed at the Gold Coast Arts Centre, Bundall.
Works on show include varying artistic media ranging from installation and video art to painting and drawing. There is always a wide range of subject matter and diverse themes exploring cultural, emotional and global views as seen by our emerging artists.
Insights Art Exhibition
Students’ aspirations are often limited by their motivation and knowledge of their
capabilities. It was from this notion that Insights was born.
Insights enables students to exhibit their artworks in a gallery space, and learn the processes related to exhibition including; framing, marketing, curatorial expectations, health & safety requirements and public relations.
This exhibition was created as a way to authenticate the student learning process while allowing students to recognise they have the ability to become ‘artists’ rather than ‘art students’. For many it will be their first foray into public exhibition and may act as the catalyst to more than one successful career. The links forged in the school setting are merely the beginning of a long journey by students to unknown destinations where the only limit is the imagination.
Lifelong learning begins, but never ends, in school.
Griffith University Extravaganza Day
Year 8 and 9 Visual Art Excellence students were involved in an Art Extravaganza Day at Queensland College of Art. The event, held at the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University enabled our students to immerse themselves in creatively charged, interactive activities. Students explored multimedia including Photoshop, photography, studio art, 3D animation and 3D printing and design.
Photoshop and 3D animation sessions saw students create fur covered designs and alien spaceships with fully rendered backgrounds, complete with ice mountains and glacial waters.
Photography sessions taught students how to capture the essence of a person using simple light. The studio gave students a full body experience. Students drew each other while on the floor before moving to life size skeleton work.
While it was fun and interesting to see and work in a real studio setting, use commercial computers and render digital images, the most exciting, and clearly the favourite media, was the 3D printing. All involved were amazed at the sample print outs which included jewellery, working cogs and machine parts as well as an artwork made up of white bone printed inside a clear hand.
Students’ willingness to experiment creatively was obvious. There is no doubt the students are emerging as artists, having left the day with a t-shirt of their own design and much inspiration.
Tweed River Regional Gallery Art Enrichment Day
Visual Art Excellence students have been selected to attend an art workshop and immersion day at the Tweed Regional Art Gallery. Here, students were introduced to professional artist Alex Seton for the day.
Alex mentored the students through the design, construction and installation of various floating plastic bag sculptures. This event enables students to work collaboratively on theory, concepts, visual problem solving and installation pieces. Each student chosen for this enrichment day has been given the opportunity to be an artist and present a resolved artwork.
Students who participated left the workshop feeling enthused and challenged; with a new understanding of art process and presentation.
Artist in residence
Senior Visual Art students have been given the opportunity of a full day Artist in Residence workshop with artist and Griffith University tutor, Kylie Hicks.
Kylie led the students through a series of observational and mark-making exercises aimed at empowering the students to believe that they all had the ability to ‘draw’. The students created some fantastic watercolour drawings of each other and at the end of the workshop joined forces to create a collaborative class artwork.
Students used bright coloured pens to sketch several continuous line drawings on a sheet of clear perspex. This culminated in the production of vibrant and layered artworks, which also serve as a documentation of a brilliant day! The artworks will be on display at the annual ‘Insights’ student exhibition.