Cerebral conceptual art in Amsterdam, a Greek marble sculpture from the first century – and then there was the photo of human limbs made of foam, metallic lycra and velvet. Welcome to the Higher School Certificate art exam.
“I feel like it was a pretty good, chill exam overall,” Cammeraygal High School student Lily Jennings said after walking out of the exam hall on Friday afternoon.
The 18-year-old particularly enjoyed answering questions about Indigenous artist Kaylene Whiskey’s 2019 artwork Coober Party.
The piece is currently listed with Paddington’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, where Whiskey’s body of work is described as “both playful and an intriguing comment on contemporary Indigenous life”.
In the exam, students were asked how Whiskey used symbolism to communicate ideas.
“That was really tricky,” Lily said. Her answer focused on how pop culture was intersected with the artist’s Indigenous heritage.
The exam is 90 minutes long and includes a shorter answer section followed by an essay. Compared to other HSC exams, students get five different essay questions to choose from.
“I think everyone just picks one which relates to an essay that they’ve done at home,” Lily said.
For Zac Oppen, 18, he chose art because he enjoyed creating work, not necessarily sitting the exam. For his major work, he used a clay wheel to create vases after teaching himself how to do it last year.
“I probably prefer the practical side a bit more, but the theory is still really interesting,” the Cammeraygal High student said.
He made vases for his major work which he said was a reflection on “the beauty and the cycles of nature; kind of life and death and regeneration”.
When it came to choosing an essay question, he opted for one asking about how artists communicate with their cultural historical context when conveying personal ideas.
To answer that, he referenced Titian and Francisco Goya, as well as Picasso and Fiona Foley.
For Violet Buchanan, 18, her major work took women featured in major canonical artworks, including Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, and utilised AI to transfigure her face onto the artworks.
“It was about women in art history,” she said.
The final result is not a self-portrait referencing the finest works of western art. Instead, the new versions, which she then recreated with her own oil paint, look entirely different.
“You had to wait for it to dry, and then you did the next one, and it just took forever,” she said.
For year 12 students, the HSC is almost over, with next week’s physics exam on Thursday the final one.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
