Artist Anna Blatman opens 2023 Art Exhibition
The exhibition showcased the creative skills and thought processes of students from prep to year 12, highlighting their talent across different areas of visual arts, design, visual communication and media.
Three hundred people attended the official opening of Shelford Girls’ Grammar School’s 2023 Art Exhibition on Friday, October 6.
In her opening speech, past student and highly successful and internationally recognised artist Anna Blatman confessed, “I failed art in year 11.”
She explained that it was a theory subject not a practical one and as a creative person it just didn’t work for her.
Eventually, her painting took off and she hasn’t looked back. “Thirty-one years later I’m still painting,” she said.
“I’m very excited to see the wonderful creativity of today’s Shelford students.”
The exhibition showcased the creative skills and thought processes of students from prep to year 12, highlighting their talent across different areas of visual arts, design, visual communication and media.
Stella Nguyen, head of visual art, said Shelford has always nurtured and encouraged creativity. “The school’s point of difference across art and all our school subjects is to inspire our girls to thrive and to do so by embracing their own way of learning,” she said.
“Our students, creative and high achievers, ranked in the top 12 schools for Naplan and VCE results in 2022.”
Year 12 student Rosie explained her entry in the exhibition, Jellyfish, “is a light installation that I created to convey the peace and tranquillity I feel by the ocean”.
“I wanted to create a piece that resembles the form of a jellyfish; however, if you look closely, you will notice symbols of coral and seaweed intertwined within the fibres.
“Texture plays an important role in my creative process. I was seeking to physically and visually re-create the sense of comfort that the ocean brings to me.”
Year 4 students learnt about how the Bush Medicine Dreaming by the women of Utopia reflected the importance of bush medicine leaves in Aboriginal culture.
Year 4 pupil Macy said, “My teacher asked me to think of a place special to me and to paint the colours of my special place in the style of the Bush Medicine Dreaming.
“I thought about my poppy’s garden and my memories of him.
“He was an engineer and he helped me fix my toys. I helped him build things. The thing he was best at was gardening.
“One time he took me to the garden and showed me his roses. It was sunset and the sun made them shine.
“I created a plant sculpture and included gears for my poppy’s job in engineering and the colours reflect the dirt and colours of his garden.”
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