Visual Arts

2025 Young Archies Competition

During term 1, Shanelle Heng was encouraged to enter to the 'Young Archies Competition'. A competition inviting budding artists between the ages of 5 and 18 to submit a portrait. Shanelle entered; creating an artwork and artist statement and sent this to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Recently, Shanelle informed me she had become a finalist!

From over 3200 entries, Shanelle became a finalist in the 13-15 age group. Her artwork, which is a portrait of her father, is now on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, until the 17 August.

Well done and congratulations Shanelle.

Here is a link to Shanelle's Artwork.

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/young-archie/2025/786/

And more information

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/art/prizes/young-archie/

Hannah Humphris

Arts Teacher

Artist of the Week

Each week we celebrate the work of enthusiastic artists:

Marcus Wirawan

Congratulations to Marcus Wirawan of 9F! Marcus has been selected as a KSC Artist of the Week. Marcus completed this work as part of his studies in Year 9 Photoraphy and was nominated for Artist of the Week by her Art Teacher, Ms McLellan. The class assessment task was a 'David Hockney Inspired Art'.

Please read what Marcus has written to describe his art piece.

After looking at David Hockney’s photographic series, I was determined to create a high-quality work inspired by his ideas. I chose a top view perspective of my friend posing making a picture frame with his hands. I used the deck as a high elevation point to allow me to take a variety of photos at different angles to the portrait subject. Once having taken the photos, I used Adobe Photoshop to arrange them to depict my friends many angles and funny side.

Yaxuan (Lucy) Liu

Congratulations to Lucy Liu of 8D! Lucy has been selected as a KSC Artist of the Week. Lucy completed this work as part of her studies in Year 8 Art class and was nominated for Artist of the Week by her Art Teacher, Mrs Russell. The class assessment task was a 'Concept Inspired Artwork'.

Please read what Lucy has written to describe her art piece.

My piece is a representation of social media addiction. It is drawn with watercolour and fine liner. The patterns in the background are made by blowing on watercolour splotches using a straw, and the texture is created using salt. The repetitiveness of the words represents the mindless nature of scrolling on a website such as TikTok and how the algorithm is engineered to make you stay on the page. The smaller pop-ups depict different disasters and how websites purposely exaggerate bad news to draw in a viewer’s attention.

2025 Years 7-10 Visual Arts Showcase

Our Visual Arts Curriculum focuses on developing students’ art knowledge & skills, develop the processes of learning how to appreciate and produce works of art, heighten curiosity, keenness in observation, analytical & critical thinking and ability and to sharpen their creativity.

Not only would such learning experiences help Koonung Secondary students nurture talents for our creative industries, more importantly, the aesthetic pursuits help enrich the lives of our students and all those who come across their work of arts.

KSC celebrated a Visual Arts Showcase of students’ achievements and I am so proud to have exhibited of all their efforts, hard work and creativity throughout the works that were on display. We hope that you enjoyed viewing the creative talents of the KSC students.

Thank you to the Visual Arts Domain teachers who not only exhibited students' works but also prepared the students to complete such creative and exciting artworks.

Amy McLellan, Chris Henson, Georgina Russell, Hannah Humphris, Emma Crimmings, Peter Scott and Kirby Sens
Arts Captains- Micaela and Jean
Administration staff for all their assistance with digital communication
KSC Facilities Manager – Peter Martin
All the staff and student helpers who supported us with the display boards
Liz Milk for loaning us the amazing library space to display the works of art
Daily organisation for helping with all the planning

And the winners are.....

A very big congratulations to the following students who participated in the 2025 Year 7-10 Visual Arts Showcase competition, "Through Your Eyes"

1st Prize Ambra Mazza 9A - ‘Max Mayfield for Stranger Things’

2nd Prize Kerry Xu 10B - ‘I See Myself’

3rd Prize Shanelle Heng 8H - ‘Through My Eyes’

Commendable Artistic Effort Eliza Cronin 7J - ‘The Murry River’

Commendable Artistic Effort Luna Xu 7J - ‘Greatest of all Times’

Helen Briffa

Visual Arts / Technology Teacher

Visual Arts Domain PLC Leader

Year 8 Deakin University Art Excursion - Art Unbound: A Day of Exploration and Collaboration

🎨 Gallery Tour – Venetian Bind Exhibition We kicked off with an exciting gallery tour where students were placed in random groups and handed an iPad to dive into the meaning behind the artwork titles! They worked together to complete a worksheet. After exploring, we came back as a whole group to share and discuss all the amazing discoveries.

✏️ Art Studio Drawing Tasks Then, we headed to the art studio where students jumped into fun and challenging drawing tasks! They tried RH drawing, LH drawing, contour drawing, and the ultimate challenge — drawing without lifting their pencil off the page! No erasers allowed! It was all about creativity and giving things a go

🖼️ Collaboration Time – Collage Postcard Activity Both classes came together in the art room for an energetic, step-by-step Collage Postcard challenge! After each step, students had to pass their artwork to the person next to them, creating a fun, unpredictable final piece. There were about eight steps to follow, and it was fantastic to see the teamwork and laughter along the way.

🎤 Closing Thanks and Celebration We wrapped up the day by thanking Tabitha for the gallery tour, V for the drawing workshop, and both of them for the amazing collaboration task.

It was such a vibrant, engaging and joyful day

🎨 Year 9 Urban Art Students Take Over Deakin University!

Our Year 9 Urban Art students headed off to Deakin University Arts for an inspiring day packed with exploration, creativity, and big ideas!

We kicked things off with an amazing sculpture tour, where students explored a diverse range of powerful and thought-provoking artworks across the campus. Each sculpture sparked curiosity and conversation, setting the scene for what was to come.

After refueling with lunch at the canteen area, the real design challenge began! As Young Artists and Designers, students were tasked with an exciting mission — to plan a Collaborative Sculpture for a real location on the Deakin University grounds.

Working in teams, they brainstormed, sketched, and developed their creative concepts, ready to pitch their visionary ideas to the Deakin University Art Council.

It was an incredible day where our students stepped into the shoes of professional artists, shared bold ideas, collaborated, and confidently presented their work to an authentic audience.

A true celebration of urban art, teamwork, and fearless creativity!

Examples of student works from Term 2 Urban Art classes:

Helen Briffa

2025 Visual Arts Domain Leader

Year 9 Media

Year 9 Media students have been creating Breaking News Disaster Reports. The task requires small groups of students to collaborate on developing an idea for a fictional natural or manmade disaster/catastrophe, then write a script which incorporates a newsreader, news reporter, eyewitnesses and experts, then film and edit into a breaking news report package. The task enabled students to work with a greenscreen in the production process to enable editing which incorporates news logos and studios in the foreground and background to create an authentic feel.