Visual Art News

It was very exciting to be able to announce the runners up and overall winner of The People’s Choice Art Award at our end of term assembly for Term 3. 

This year there was a new category of Highly Commended works, which received 20 - 30 votes each. These students were Jayella Banks, Annabelle Gatehouse, Zoe Lynch, Lola Helmers, Isabella Fenton, Rebecca Niiranen, Megan Hatendi and Lucy Mauafu. 

The finalists were Vanthanah Vijayalayan (Year 7), Evie Usuga (Year 8), Hannah Jager (Year 9) and Eryn Kelly (Year 10). Hannah received the most votes overall.  Unfortunately we had a very full assembly schedule so did not have time for Hannah to deliver her acceptance speech. She has kindly agreed to have it published here instead.

Thank you Mrs Magnus and congratulations to the three other finalists. All of our pieces of art are totally unique and that’s what makes them all so deserving of being nominated.

The Year 9 Art unit in Terms 1 and 2 was EPOCH, which is the beginning of or a particular time in the history of someone or something’s life. 

We started the unit by thinking about what we see in our future and our task was to create an engaging and unique installation that told a meaningful story. Everyone was given free reign with the materials and mediums they could use, as long as it fit the theme and pushed our creative boundaries.

The title of my installation is Lifeblood and the concept behind it is that for me, there is no future without art, just like for every living being there is no life without blood. 

Using unravelled red rope to represent veins, I glued them onto four blank canvases which represented the four chambers of a human heart. These veins found their way back to the core of the installation - a 3D printed, lifesize heart with a LED light mimicking the beating of a human heart.

So many different artists inspire me, but there was one that helped with this creative journey. Brazilian artist Janaina Mello Landini depicts tree root labyrinths on canvases, sprawling from the edges from floor to ceiling.

Thank you to all those here who voted for me. Thank you also to Mrs Magnus for her guidance along the way and for supporting every secondary student's creative ideas to help them achieve their goals beyond what they thought they were capable of. 

In other exciting news, it was wonderful to see the Year 7 Art collaborative Banner on display outside TMAG during the school holiday LiftOff Festival.

The EPOCH exhibition opens November 17 at TMAG. Year 9 students Hannah Jager and Katie Sluis' postcard designs have been selected as part of a series of hero Epoch postcards to go up on TMAG’s  Soapbox Billboards in Mathers Place. We are looking forward to seeing them and all the beautiful postcards the Year 9 art students completed, along with a number of their installations on display at Waterside Pavilion, Mawson Place, Hobart 6 - 9 December.