A snapshot of Year 12 Visual Art, exploring Art and Science connections. Erica Gu Emotional Flux My work explores how much control we have when our emotions fluctuate, and how unstable our emotions can be when the outside world puts pressure on us. This work consists of four self-portraits (Fear, Sadness, Surprise, Acceptance), each representing four very distinct and remembered feelings. Four paintings are fixed in black frames and as the audience passes by and interacts with them they flutter back and forth. The shaky picture obscures and blurs my reality metaphorically suggesting someone else is responsible for how I am feeling. Existentialism is a philosophical approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. My work plays with that idea.
Sarah Campbell Connections Strength in any community is conditional upon Trust and Hope. Communities are like chains- as strong as their weakest links. This work is about what we see, know and reveal openly. It is also about secrets, how we share them and how we lock them away. My work is inspired by the Curiosity Cabinets (Wunderkammer), specifically Medicinal Wunderkammer, and the importance of structure and support in people’s lives. Sociologists quote “friendships are the key to surviving.” Community, trust, and working in groups are all important factors that allow for individual and collective self-preservation. The cabinet will allow audiences to reflect on their own relationships and experiences, and the significance of the connections in their lives.
Morgan Kerr Weightless Harmonies explores weight and weightlessness. Music is a healing power for the brain, and can psychologically be used to release gravitas and internal pressures like anxiety and depression. Music often provokes an emotional response from listeners, and in my works the audience needs to suspend reality to imagine they can hear music to connect with the work. Music can have a positive impact on the weighed-down human condition, yet its impact is unable to be quantified and measured through weight itself. This is ‘played on’ in my works by making instruments look like they are made of graphite rock. ‘The Flow’ is one aspect of positive psychology identified by Milay Csikszentmihalyi, who describes it as the state of absorption we experience when we engage with an activity – enter my “quiet music world.”
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huddle I spring 2021
