This course welcomes anyone, no matter what your skill level. Passion and an ability to work independently are important, as is the desire to develop your own ideas, experience and relationship with contemporary art. Your lecturer will build a program to suit you. Class sizes are usually 10-15 students.
All Studio Art students are strongly encouraged to enrol for the whole year, as the classes are planned carefully to build artistic expertise and confidence over a one year period.
Students will be involved in occasional feedback sessions about each other’s work throughout the year. These casual yet informed conversations about the development of artwork, guided by the lecturers, have proven to be very robust and valuable.
In term four, we focus our attention on our end-of-year exhibition, a wonderful opportunity for our students to show their artwork made over the course of the year to their family, friends and the School of Art community, as well as the broader public. The exhibition is held at the Student Gallery, on campus at the School of Art.
Many of our students go on to further study at the School of Art and we are happy to provide information and support in assisting our students in the preparation of folios for undergraduate or postgraduate interview.
Objectives and Structure
Studio Art students need to select one class (from the three listed below) to major in for the duration of the year. In this class they will work closely with their lecturer and colleagues for a year long period, developing their own artistic language and voice.
Contemporary Painting
In our Contemporary Painting class students, with the supportive and critical encouragement of their lecturer, will develop painting projects that incorporate new ideas and techniques. The class will explore a wide range of practical methods including the use of oil, acrylic, ink and watercolour paint as well as the preparation of a variety of painting surfaces including canvas, wood and paper. The lecturer will discuss the myriad of ways artists, of both national and international significance, are working with painting today.
Drawing
This class will look at the multitude of possibilities that drawing can entail. Students will be encouraged to build their own understanding of their personal visual language through exploring and experimenting with a wide range of materials and ideas related to the world of drawing. By thinking about drawing as a foundation to the development of other mediums and/or as a discipline in its own right, students will build a body of artwork over the year.
Sculpture
This year long course will introduce students to some of the main concepts and techniques in contemporary sculpture. It aims to ground the student in a dynamic art-historical context from which they will be learn to develop their ideas and skills. Students are introduced to a range of material processes including modelling, mould-making and casting, assemblage, working with wood, welding and other techniques as required. Through the four terms students will be guided through various aspects of creating three-dimensional work, initially through a program of structured projects, to conceptualising and completing self-initiated works of art.