Art-iculate: Art Express at Art Gallery Of New South Wales

Whilst in Australia I did my fair share of gallery visits and in Sydney I particularly enjoyed visitng the Art Gallery of New South Wales. During my trip I discovered the Art Express exhibition and competition which promotes the outstanding work of students - taken from their higher school certificate examination - across several media working throughout New South Wales. Coming to prominence in the late 1950's Art Express has gone on to become one of the leading touring exhibitions of student work gaining international acclaim. Beyong impressed, of the six works I absolutely loved, I'm proud to say that by coincidence they are all created at the hand of young female artists.

1 - Laura Beck, The Last Fish and Chips:
"My body of work illustrates the negative impact humans have on our oceans. Due to the high demand for fish as a food source, our oceans are being overfished. The population of fish is slowly depleting as time goes on. This artwork indicates the level of damage humans are having on our marine life and natural environment."

2- Isabelle Liu and Yew Fai, Heading Towards Annihilation Whilst Engaged In trivial Conversation:
"The dodo bird is symbolic of my Mauritian background but my work is also an exploration of the dodo’s characteristics and the idea of extinction. By using bright and unnatural colours, my artwork comments on our lack of knowledge of the dodo’s true appearance and questions the real reasons that led to their annihilation. I want my work to act as a warning about other endangered species that are in imminent danger of extinction."

3- Laura Buchanan, It Started Simple Then Got Complicated:
"String wasn’t a passion of mine until I saw that boy in the playground tying a piece of string around a pole. Simple. Utilitarian, yet playful. What began as a satirical concept transformed into something far greater than I could ever have imagined. But that’s what string does. It unravels, tangles, invites, frustrates, delights. One moment it’s screaming of the complex over-connectedness of our modern lives, then all of a sudden it’s a whimsical game. The neatly machine-rolled order became a functionally useless, colourful chaos that found its place and had its say."

4-Katherine McNamara, Logic Will Take Yopu From A to B; Imagination Takes You Everywhere:
"I have hand-stitched little characters and objects on and around the subject of my work: my niece. A child’s imagination is the breath and innocence of life. I am celebrating the freedom that a child has to play off their imagination and conceived reality. I challenge the viewer to renew their present life with a burst of innocent and childish thoughts and scenarios. Return to your childhood, remember the days when ‘impossible’ was never found within your vocabulary and weave a little foolishness into your day – it does not have to be logical to make you smile."

5- Lauren Eliza Chock, Deferred:
"Throughout my body of work I explored the issue of procrastination and the idea that procrastination can end in regrets. I was also influenced by the amount of people who have regrets because they don’t pursue their dreams and wishes. I chose to investigate the concept of procrastination as I personally believe there is no time for procrastination; that the present should be lived to prevent regrets in life. Choices I made to specifically address procrastination included found objects which I used to represent aspects in which procrastination occurs and how it can have negative effects."

6- Ria Hancock, Mandy:
"As I explored the life and abilities of the praying mantis, I wanted to capture the complexity of the insect and portray this in my finished work. The praying mantis appears awkward and ungainly, but in reality it is a precise and deadly predator giving no mercy to its unsuspecting prey. Stainless steel and patinated copper armour gives a misleading impression of softness underlying the reality of this precise killer. The praying mantis is a small, insignificant creature – by creating a larger version of this insect I sought to highlight the importance of insects to the survival of the world."