Visual Arts Focus

Celebrating Australian Indigenous Women Artists!

In Visual Arts this year we are celebrating the unique style of Australian Indigenous Women Artists!

We will be allowing their designs, their influences, and the character of their work shape our own artwork. We will be particularly energised by:

The Bark Ladies

11 Yolŋu women artists from the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre (Buku), in North-East Arnhem Land.

Seeing the Bark Ladies

If you want to see the Bark Ladies’ artwork yourself there is an exhibition on at the moment at the NGV, (where the water runs down the wall). It will be ending on April 25th So plan to visit soon.

Did you know the Bark Ladies have begun working with discarded printer cartridges recycled from the rubbish tip, an innovation that opened up an array of technicolour pigments previously not available to these Yolŋu artists.

These students have visited the NGV and loved the BARK LADIES exhibition.

The Tjanpi Desert Weavers

A social enterprise of the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council, working with women in the remote Central and Western desert regions, representing over 400 Anangu/Yarnangu women artists from 26 remote communities on the NPY lands.

Ernabella Arts Ceramics

Where, at The Arts Centre in the Pukatja Community at the eastern end of the Musgrave Ranges in the far north west of South Australia, Anangu expression is enabled through the medium of clay. Women artists make work that are both sculptural and vessel-based and represent connection to Country and storytelling.

Across term one, we have been focussing on colour as well! Of course, COLOUR MEANS PAINT!

As a result, paint has become our passion, with colour right beside it.

We have been studying the many classifications of colour and the way artists use it to express themselves. It is such a captivating element of ART!

So what have we been learning?

In Foundation: It is all about the primary and secondary colours.
In Years 1 & 2: Hot and cold colours dominate.
In Years 3 & 4: Complementary colours are the focal point.
In Years 5 & 6: Refining colour mixing skills creating tones, blends, tints, and shades for colour charts.

Understanding colour and applying it to our practice enables us to approach our work with confidence and skill.

Remember Sidney Nolan?

What a significant, modernist Australian artist he is! We loved learning about his story, his style in 2021.

We are so fortunate to have a major exhibition of his work, showing at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, just close by in Bulleen. This exhibition, Sidney Nolan: Search for Paradise brings together more than 50 paintings from across his career and offers a unique view into his artistic life. Yes, he did paint so much more than Ned Kelly!

You may want to visit… the exhibition ends Monday 13 June. See below for details!

~ Marjie Tkatchenko, Visual Arts Teacher