Visual Arts Faculty

From the Co-ordinator of Visual Arts

Year 11 Visual Arts Excursion to the Art Gallery of NSW

On Monday 4 August, Year 11 Visual Arts students visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales for an enriching and engaging day of learning.

The day began with a writing workshop designed to help students develop their skills in interpreting and analysing artworks. They explored a range of two-dimensional and three-dimensional historical and contemporary pieces, learning how to unpack unseen works for Section I of their upcoming Yearly Examination. Through question-and-answer sessions, students were challenged on their understanding of the Visual Arts content areas, building confidence in applying their knowledge to questions. 

Students then visited the prestigious Archibald, Wynn, and Sulman Prizes, taking great delight in reading the wall texts and artist statements to understand the inspiration behind the works. They completed a worksheet that encouraged close looking and critical thinking.

The final stop for the day was the Yolŋu Power exhibition, where students were fortunate to hear directly from the exhibition's Curator. They asked thoughtful questions and gained valuable insight into the curatorial process and the collaborative decisions made between artists and curators in shaping an exhibition.

It was a fantastic day of learning made even more memorable by a member of the public who praised the students for their diligence, engagement, and enthusiasm throughout the day.

A big thank you to the Visual Arts staff for organising and giving up their time to accompany our students. 

Year 10 Visual Arts Excursion to Long Reef Beach

Our Year 10 Visual Art students recently enjoyed an inspiring excursion to Long Reef Beach, where they spent the morning working alongside local visiting artist Rachel Carroll. Under Rachel’s guidance, students explored the coastal landscape through a variety of drawing activities, experimenting with different materials to capture the beauty of Long Reef and the textures, forms, and atmosphere of the environment around them.

Back in the classroom, students used their on-site sketches as the foundation for further creative exploration, developing both a painting and a monoprint inspired by the morning’s work. The students were thoroughly engaged throughout the day, and their efforts resulted in a stunning collection of artworks that reflected both their individual styles and the natural environment they studied.

Year 9 Artists and Filmmakers Find Inspiration at Manly Q Station

Our Year 9 Visual Arts and Photographic & Digital Media (PDM) students recently took part in an exciting and atmospheric excursion to the historic Manly Q Station — a site with a rich past and a powerful presence that continues to inspire curiosity and creativity. Formerly a quarantine station operating from the 1830s to 1984, the Q Station is a place deeply embedded with stories of human endurance, isolation, and loss. This layered history became the perfect stimulus for both our PDM and VA classes, who will now respond artistically to their experiences onsite.

As night fell, students took part in an after-hours Ghost Tracker tour, using EMT (Electromagnetic Tracking) devices to detect paranormal activity throughout the site’s most active locations. These chilling and emotionally resonant stories of past residents helped students connect to the atmosphere in a more visceral way — providing an emotionally rich foundation for their upcoming projects.

🎥 Photographic and Digital Media: Storytelling Through Film

Following the excursion, our PDM students will develop and write suspense-driven short films, drawing directly from the haunting impressions of the Q Station visit. Using the school grounds at night as their own eerie film set, students will creatively transform familiar locations into imagined worlds filled with tension and mystery. Using Adobe Premiere Pro, they will edit their footage with advanced film techniques — stretching and compressing time, building mood through sound and pacing, and layering visual effects to enhance atmosphere and drama. The focus is on cinematic storytelling: how framing, lighting, editing and sound design can all work together to evoke emotion and create meaning.

🎨 Visual Arts: Atmospheric Printmaking and Composition

Our Visual Arts students are taking a more textural approach. Through careful observational drawing and photographic documentation onsite, they have collected visual data to begin a small body of printmaking work. Students are focusing on composition to develop two-point perspective to construct structured, layered compositions, the interplay of light and shadow to evoke a sense of mystery or unease and the combination of textures, surfaces and forms seen throughout the site.

Using ink and colour application, they will explore a range of experimental printmaking techniques to develop atmospheric, expressive responses to place. These works will aim to convey the emotional weight of the Q Station environment — still, quiet, and steeped in memory.

This integrated learning experience across Visual Arts and PDM not only deepens students' understanding of art and film as a response to place, but also challenges them to use a range of expressive forms to bring their ideas to life.

We look forward to showcasing their powerful interpretations in the coming weeks.

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