curatorial statement

All students have a story to tell. Visual Arts students have the chance to tell that story in so many ways. ARTEXPRESS 2010 at the Gallery is an exhibition that brings together these stories and offers the audience an opportunity to see and appreciate them first hand.

Finalising the dates for ARTEXPRESS in the Gallery’s calendar of exhibitions occurs at least 12 months ahead, however, the process of curating this year’s exhibition began in October 2009 after the works were pre-selected by the Board of Studies NSW (see Behind the scenes). This year, 406 bodies of work were pre-selected from the 9665 Visual Arts students who submitted artworks as part of the 2009 HSC. As the Gallery is the principal venue for ARTEXPRESS, I had the privilege of having first choice.

I began with an open mind and no preconceived idea about the final look or feel of the exhibition. There was no focus theme or technique influencing my selection. With a pencil, a list and a measuring tape in hand, I ventured into the unknown, hoping that the artworks, sitting quietly and patiently in nondescript cardboard boxes, brown paper and reams of bubble wrap on rows and rows of trestle tables, would be good to me and lead my way.

Many works in pre-selection were well resolved, well edited and showed great maturity and sophistication. The students had embraced their chosen expressive form and produced artwork of the highest quality. As I finalised my list – eventually selecting a total of 44 bodies of work – I felt the need to create an exhibition that responded to this, one that offered each body of work the space to make its comment heard.

This year, the exhibition is back in the projects gallery on the ground floor. As a curator, it is important to understand the display area, how it works within the larger Gallery environment and, most importantly, how it can be utilised to draw an audience into the exhibition. I felt that the students I selected were generous in sharing their most personal thoughts and feelings or their connections with their urban or rural surroundings. Some looked within and others expressed strong opinions about social justice and the environment. Some found themselves through the art-making process; others celebrated the techniques they worked so hard to understand. It was important to create a space that was as open and welcoming as the works themselves.

I began with a wide corridor which would lead viewers through the exhibition. However, the audience’s journey would be their own. I envisaged each room as a chapter of a narrative but one that could be read in any order.  What was important was that each individual body of work was given the space to ‘breathe’.

As I began arranging the artworks I found some strong connections between them. Some, especially in textiles and fibre, printmaking, collections of works and sculpture, had a feeling of the handmade. A concept or subject grouped others. Portraits, still life and the theme of music recurred, and appropriation was still an approach explored by many. There was one thing I only noticed after I finalised my selection and saw thumbnails of each artwork, but its message was loud and clear: red featured in so many of the works, it would have to be the exhibition colour this year.  

The exhibition title wall is red with a new metallic sign – a strong and confidant beginning. Artworks that used red have been placed in particular sight lines to draw viewers in. To counterbalance the red, I have placed green works on other key walls. This served as the basis for grouping the rest of the artworks together, including the many black-and-white images which help to complete the colour variations in the exhibition.

My vision was to show the artworks in ‘white cubes’, a classic approach of exhibition display. It was important for me to cement these works in a gallery context, to present them in the same way that work by professional artists is exhibited. My hope was that viewers who pass this exhibition from the central foyer look inside and are drawn in by the artworks, then are pleasantly surprised to discover that HSC Visual Arts students created them.

One of the most fulfilling experiences as the curator of ARTEXPRESS 2010 at the Gallery has been meeting the artists – the transition from a student number to a name to a young adult eager to tell a story. My role has been to offer the artist and the audience a platform to speak to each other. It is satisfying to know that each person in the audience – whether a fellow student, a teacher or a member of the general public – leaves with their own understanding of the art and their own ideas of what they liked and, I hope, each in their own way has been inspired.

Leeanne Carr
Curator ARTEXPRESS 2010
Coordinator, Years 7-12 Education Programs
Public Programs Department,
Art Gallery of NSW