Visual Art showcase

Celebration of students' artworks : 12 October

The Northcote High School Art Faculty will be hosting a celebration of our wonderful students’ artworks on Wednesday 12 October, from 5 until 6pm, in C Block. 

The exhibition opening will celebrate the opening of The Knowledge Tree, created (mainly) by Beatrice Aslanidis. It will also show the fine work of our Year 7 students, who have been busy creating Archibald Prize portraits in Art class. The Year 12 Studio Art, Visual Communication Design and Media students will also be having their amazing work showcased throughout the C Block building.

All Welcome! Please come and celebrate the creative achievements of our very talented students, here at Northcote High School. 

The Knowledge Tree

Early in 2018, a few creatively minded Year 8 students formed a group called Art Tribe. They were Beatrice Aslanidis, Tess Argyros, Teagan Chambers, Jack Marmo, Eleanor Sutherland, Selvi McGowan, and Molly Addison. Their intention was to build a life-sized sculpture of a tree, with decorative leaves suspended from the branches that contained words of inspiration and wisdom. The tree was created for the school Library, an important, central hub for the students of Northcote High School.

The tree would perform the role of an interactive art installation, with students encouraged to share words, poems, and life tips, writing on the leaves and hanging them on the tree.

The Knowledge Tree has been 5 years in the making, with Beatrice Aslanidis as the lead sculptor, spearheading the creative mission through the interruptions of the covid pandemic and the rigours of VCE studies. The process began with the Art Tribe team discussing ideas of how the tree should look, creating sketches and diving into the process of building the tree out of Papier Mache, packed onto an armature.

Beatrice spent countless hours on the tree, twisting newspaper to make tree branches, padding the trunk with layers of Papier Mache, and gluing it all together seamlessly with PVA. Teagan helped with the leaf designs and lamination. Once the tree was finally built, Beatrice had to come up with a design for the trunk that complimented the tree and didn’t compete with the incredible, decorative qualities of the leaves. She kept a soft, neutral palette decorated with lines and spots, reminiscent of the trunk of a scribble gum tree.

You can now see the Knowledge Tree in the main corridor of the school, near the entrance.

When the new STEM building is complete, the artwork will be relocated to its forever home in the library. A huge congratulations to Beatrice, Teagan and the past members of Art Tribe, what a fantastic, creative contribution to our Northcote High School community.

~Christine Martin