Learning Across the
Senior School
SACE Art Show 2024
Artworks by 2023 Year 12 Visual Art students Cici Liu, Meg Slade and Audrey Waterhouse have been selected for exhibition in the 2024 SACE Art Show at the Light Square Gallery, Adelaide College of the Arts. Additionally, Cici is the recipient of the Eckersley’s Art and Craft Encouragement Award. We extend our congratulations for this well-deserved recognition of the students’ technical abilities, innovative concepts, and artistic vision.
Meg Slade
‘Intergenerational Farming’
My paintings illustrate the process of farming wheat, and the annual practice of seeding and harvest which has been passed down for several generations in my family. The wrinkled hands of my grandfather convey longevity and record the wear and tear of a farmer’s hands. The subtle inclusion of water in the second painting recognizes its critical significance for crop farming. My youngest brother’s chubby fingers, wrapped around stalks of wheat ready to be harvested represents the interconnectedness between different generations. Through the portrayal of hands, my paintings emphasize the intimate relationship between humanity and the environment. Ultimately, farming is a noble profession that resonates with all of us as consumers.
Audrey Waterhouse
‘Trish – Surviving the Night’
My starting point was a conceptual focus on ‘Fragility - the quality of being easily broken or damaged’. I considered several subjects before settling on the human condition. From Lee Jefferies’ black-and-white portraits of homeless people, I selected Trish, a quintessential example of vulnerability on the street; a woman exploited by an unforgiving society. Jeffries explains “[Trish] understands what she is doing, the life she is living. She understands the choices she makes; she just cannot see a way out”. I identified a strong conceptual connection between Goodwin Bradbeer’s contemplative figure drawings, which capture the human essence, imbued with existentialism and melancholy, and Trish’s hunched pose and downcast facial expression. By introducing a beam of light into the background I want to propose hope as well as alluding to dawn after “surviving the night”. For Trish and others suffering similar circumstances as the “invisible members” of society, I implore viewers to “see the person, not the homeless person… see the humanity”.
Cici Liu
‘Production Line’
The cover illustration of Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’ inspired the theme for my paintings. The couple sleeping in a sardine can made me reflect on the human tendency to stick together, like sardines, out of a desire to belong and a fear of being alone.
Human nature and longing for acceptance are represented through the combination of human and fish characteristics. Influenced by the expressive aesthetic and social commentary in artworks by Keith Haring and Jean-Michael Basquiat, I aimed to capture a sense of conformity.
Although my aesthetic may seem spontaneous, each layer is carefully planned to symbolize the internal struggles faced when searching for personal and collective identity. Words such as 'Humanity', 'Homo Sapiens', and 'Society' are featured prominently in various forms and several languages as a representation of the shared human experience.
The use of gilded tin cans, decorated with gold leaf, serves as a symbol for the metaphorical cage individuals find themselves in due to societal pressures and expectations.
Mrs Jacky Hamilton
Leader of Visual Arts