Graduation Exhibition : Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) 1989 B.C.A

Graduation Exhibition :

Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) 1989

B.C.A.E

Robert Brownhall Ann Buzolic Leonard Costantini

Veronica De Jong Samantha Fishburn

Stephen Hall Donald Allan Heron

Marcel Leneham Maria Mac Dermott

Duncan Marshall Sophie McIntyre

Michelle Matti Nicholas Olsen

Elise Parups Kate Ryan Lisa Scully Nicole Smith Stephanie Theobald

Ellen Thompson

Daniel Tobin

Scott Whitaker

INTRODUCTION

The work in this exhibition reflects our intention at the very beginning when we tried to find a direction for this course. Emphasis has been placed on making sound aesthetic judgements, and the students have been allowed to grow in their own way. They have been encouraged to try new paths, without over-direction, so that they can discover what lies within

themselves. Each student has produced work expressing an individual personality. It is very difficult to offer more in an art school.

The school provides resources and staff, but finally the student must work alone to form an understanding of their own personality, life and vision.

Personality may be affected by life, but it is also something distinctive within the individual when they are born. The very marks we make in some way reflect whether we are aggressive, gentle or contemplative, or even whether we calculate. This is only the beginning, the harder path for the artist still lies ahead, for it is unlikely that there will be that complete

support system that exists when we are students. Now the artist must work alone, whether favourable criticism is being received or not. That belief in one's own work must sustain each artist throughout their lifetime. It seems that, on the law of averages, everyone may not succeed as a professional artist. The course never really pretended to produce people who could earn their living by making art, and no art course which is honest could claim to do this. What the course has produced is a way of life, an enrichment of knowledge, good friendships, perhaps lifetime friendships, and the ability to think with an open mind. In this way it fulfils the criteria for an art course, whether it be in languages, history or fine art.

This is my last year of teaching at BCAE, and I intend to paint full-time now, instead of combining teaching and painting. I hope that all of the

graduating students will have a rewarding life, and that in some small way I have been able to give them an insight into their own potential. I would like to pay a special tribute to the respected artists who have been

involved in the education of these graduates. They have encouraged, with warmth and sensitivity, always placing the students interests first.

Life is still to unfold for these young artists, and will ultimately affect their work. Their vision hopefully will always remain clear, truthful and

uncompromising.

Bill Robinson, 1989

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Graduating Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) students of 1989 wish to acknowledge the many people involved with the production and staging of the Graduate Exhibition.

A special note of thanks must be extended to Katherine Davis and the Arts Division of the Premier's Department; Trevor Sullivan and the State Works;

and to the Queensland Youth Orchestra, whose assistance and cooperation made possible the use of the old Queensland Museum Building as the main exhibition space.

Thank you also to Ian Rufford, Margaret Johnston, Ian Fraser, Rosslyn Clayton and the Brisbane College of Advanced Education Printery for their valuable advice and assistance during the production of this catalogue, and to Michael Richards whose photographic expertise was much appreciated.

We also wish to thank the BCAE Student Union for their contribution to the funding of this project, and to Dr Joe Airo-Farulla, Stephen Rainbird, Helen Lillecrapp-Fuller, Margery Forde and Sue Parkes, for their assistance.

In addition to the above-mentioned, and those too numerous to mention individually, we would also like to take this opportunity to thank the School of Arts for its administrative support, the officers of the Brisbane College of Advanced Education and the lecturing staff of the past three years, for their continued advice, support and efforts. In particular, we wish to

express our gratitude and congratulations to Bill Robinson in his final year of lecturing.

NAME: Robert Brownhall YEAR OF BIRTH:

1968

PLACE OF BIRTH: Brisbane

Over the last year my work has been, for the most part, purely observational. I am interested and excited by what surrounds me visually.

Painting down simple representations of reality, I find, is a very special and satisfying experience.

UNTITLED; oil on canvas; 1989 30 cm x 55 cm

NAME: Ann Buzolic YEAR OF BIRTH: 1970 PLACE OF BIRTH: Brisbane

I work spontaneously, using material I have gathered and brought around me - whatever may be within arm's reach. My work comes out of a compulsion to collect and hoard, and subsequent cleaning rituals.

I am interested in what I chose to leave out as much as in what I include. My materials have become paper bags and envelopes and string more often than paints and pencils. If my work lacks continuity, it is because I fix on momentary interests. These are connected with my family, my close friends, and myself made up of these.

PARENTS KITE; photocopy on rice paper; 1989 66 cm x 55 cm

NAME:

Leonard Costantini

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1968

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Brisbane

I began to use creativity as a means of exploring the reasons why I live and unwittingly, it itself became one of those reasons. My life as a conservationist and as artist mutually support each other and inevitably, inseparabilia has set in. Art has helped me nurture a sensitivity towards my environment that has enabled me to overcome the disillusionment offered by popular culture. The creative process has become affirmation and celebration of my belonging. High school biology taught me that there is a web of life, and then there are humans. I have inherited a planet whose life support systems are slowly crumbling as a result of such ignorance. With this inheritance comes a responsibility to change both myself and the environment in which I live.

About this installation: By salvaging and adapting used materials I currently enjoy, (among other things) placing metaphorical spokes in the wheels of the unguarded "consumer and excrete" tendencies of our dominant cultures.

Thanks: to John Armstrong and my regrets that I didn't have longer to spend under his guidance.

P.S.: Don't buy Meranti.

PRAYING TENTS (Detail); wood, twine, metal; 1989 28 cm x 12 cm x 12 cm

NAME:

Stephen Hall

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1969

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Middlesbrough, England

My paintings of my friend and I playing pool are the result of a distraction becoming an obsession.

Humour has always been important to me. To paint the events that occur when we play pool in a serious manner would be hypercritical.

FENCE AROUND THE POOL; oil on canvas; 1989 33 cm x 43 cm

NAME:

Donald Allan Heron

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1970

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Mackay

The figure is often the subject of my paintings. I enjoy the medium, and like to leave a certain amount of the work to the painting processes involved.

UNTITLED; oil on canvas; 1989 80 cm x 60 cm

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NAME: Marcel Leneham YEAR OF BIRTH:

1968

PLACE OF BIRTH: Townsville

I like beautiful things that possess a certain amount of ugliness. My work has an attraction with a comparable amount of repulsion.

In my work there are four recurrent themes.

importance of the viewer to the work;

use of repetition or pattern' - a basis of theory or concepts;

- use of personal symbols.

Probably as a result of these four elements, my work seems to have a sympathy with visual merchandising. This piece is, maybe, a by-product of the work having to "sell" itself to me. To be satisfied with a piece, I view it objectively as the "third person". It MUST to me. I can't, and won't, and don't accept any compromise. That is not to say, however, that there is only one end result for any given piece. My original idea may change (often drastically) from the original conception to the final realisation of the idea, and this is good - and welcome. Each one of my pieces has passed through a number of stages on its way to completion, and in turn, each step (progressive or otherwise) aids the completion of another piece.

ET CETERA, ET AL (detail); bicycle tube, tacks, laytex, air; 1989 47 cm x 30 cm x 2.5 cm

NAME:

Maria Mac Dermott

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1967

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Brisbane

I enjoy working on paper, using fairly simple and accessible materials - usually watercolour and crayon.

The images sometimes derive from drawings of observed reality, though move often from drawings of memories and dreams. The surface of the paper plays an important role in the working process. The building up or scratching back causes reactions which influence colour choices, and sometimes changes in the imagery.

The non-preciousness of the materials allows for a certain freedom in being able to discard pieces, or to work things through again and again.

The work is about my own obsessiveness.

DUNCAN, ALI, BOOGA AND ME; crayon and watercolour on paper; 1989 53 cm x 72 cm

UNTITLED; oil and craypas on paper; 1989

NAME:

Duncan Marshall

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1968

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Wales

55 cm x 75 cm

''... Let a hundred flowers blossom

NAME:

Sophie McIntyre

YEAR OF BIRTH: 1968 PLACE OF BIRTH:

Armidale

Let a hundred schools of thought contend ... "

Mao Tse-Tung On my return from China I felt a certain detachment which arose from the distinct physical and cultural differences. My experiences in China now seemed remote.

From the events in May at Tienanmen Square I was confronted with a series of images which became the catalyst for my present work.

I became aware of a conformity which appears to order all aspects of life in China. I interpreted this through the repetition of line and image. I also realised that it was this conformity which inevitably shaped and restrained the "blossoming" of China.

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OUR HOPE IS PLACED ON YOU; oil, mixed media, collage on canvas; 1989

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130 cm x 100 cm

NAME:

Michelle Matti

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1969

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Ingham

I paint for the process, the act of making. Painting/drawing becomes another way of transferring energy and the residue of my personal activity. To find an adequate means of communicating energy preserves my regard for the finished product.

I work loosely from drawings or pictures to start to gain structural stimulus. Line, direction, space and quality of mark are the most important elements.

With rapid movement through many pieces I use chance to allow constant opportunities in which "something" may happen. The challenge of this being more desirable than that of striving to achieve one particular premeditated idea (which may never be successful). Painting is intuitive. Through the absence of any obvious subject, the work inherits the chance to stand alone and be interpreted for only how it exists at that particular point in my own, or the viewers mind, free of past associations.

The unknown begins each painting and, with its completion, exists still in what could have happened, thus providing the enthusiasm to start another.

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WORKING DRAWINGS FROM DEMOLITION SITE; graphite; 1989 A4 x 2

NAME:

Nicholas Olsen

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1968

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Melbourne

Creativity is not taught by one person to another. It is revealed and evolves through observations from nature. A clean fresh environment provides the time and space to I record relationships and feelings I receive in everyday situations, drawing parallels from separate incidents, allowing the ideas to overlap, producing work from that experience.

Animals (especially pigeons and dogs), fascinate me. Their actions and relationships tend to reflect the people I know. I work with many layers of paint, built on and exposed, consistent with the transparencies and layers we build in relationships.

We learn from our ability to conceive a situation - something derived from our

storymaking process as children. It is a lot more efficient when our creativity is not taught, but part of life from the very beginning.

P'VALE HILL; oil on canvas; 1989 20 cm x 30 cm

NAME:

Elise Parups

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1969

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Brisbane

I record relationships and feelings I receive in everyday situations, drawing parallels from separate incidents, allowing the ideas to overlap, producing work from that experience.

Animals (especially pigeons and dogs), fascinate me. Their actions and relationships tend to reflect the people I know. I work with many layers of paint, built on and exposed, consistent with the transparencies and layers we build in relationships.

UNTITLED; oil, charcoal, paper, ink on canvas; 1989 107 cm x 120 cm

NAME:

Kate Ryan

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1965

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Cootamundra

My work has gradually been reduced to working with colours in either collage or paint.

The colours I use in painting come from no one source. They are the colours I may see when walking or the colours people wear.

At first I work spontaneously to see what happens with what colours here and there, then I attempt to work more critically with the colour to try and gain an understanding of my own aesthetic, and what remains beyond my control.

UNTITLED; oil on canvas; 1989 83 cm x 117 cm

NAME:

Lisa Scully

YEAR OF BIRTH: 1969 PLACE OF BIRTH:

Brisbane

Over the past year I have used the landscape as a base from which to work. I work from my surroundings, with what I am close to and familiar with. I am dealing with the space and forms which have gradually evolved from continuous looking at, and drawing from, the landscape. Colour constantly changes within the landscape and is what I have essentially dealt with.

LANDSCAPE; oil on canvas; 1989 81.5cm x 69cm

NAME: Nicole Smith YEAR OF BIRTH: 1969

PLACE OF BIRTH: Bundaberg

People are my inspiration and I find them a fascinating resource. My paintings are intimate and sympathetic portraits of family members evoked from memories, sketches and photographic studies.

I enjoy the struggle which occurs as brilliant pigments are aligned on the canvas, and find excitement in the power of colour to suggest emotional content. In an attempt to reveal psychological and physical truths about the characters represented, I find intense working and reworking necessary. This often involves the omission of detail.

A personal obsession with the strength of line, shape and compositional harmony, which is not far removed from certain elements of patterning, dictates the two-dimensional

appearance of my imagery.

PORTRAIT OF NOLA 11; oil on canvas; 1989 101 cm x 76 cm

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Stephanie Theobald

YEAR OF BIRTH: 1969 PLACE OF BIRTH:

Sydney

I draw my ideas through first, and work colour later. The pictures usually include my parents and my two brothers. My family are the people I am most concerned with. They are a major influence on me, so I try to explain them in my pictures.

UNTITLED; oil on canvas and board; 1989 69 cm x 49 cm

NAME: Ellen Thompson YEAR OF BIRTH: 1969 PLACE OF BIRTH: Brisbane

I am now outside the image. I feel somewhat omnipotent. I have the autonomy to dissect, select, to build and mould. I can decipher and mutilate. I create a complete image, a body I can then label, or a body that renders the label either poignant or absurd.

What is beneath? Entrails.

What is above? Facade.

What is beneath? What is above? The real.

To create the real from the unreal, to build a facade upon truth.

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UNTITLED; crayon, red paper, photocopied face, on water colour paper; 1989 25 cm x 18 cm

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NAME:

Daniel Tobin

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1969

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Brisbane

Remember that art does exist outside the gallery, and that the gallery space tends to make objects art.

WORK IN PROGRESS; mixed media - fibreglass, resins, ceramic, 1989.

NAME:

Scott Whitaker

YEAR OF BIRTH:

1969

PLACE OF BIRTH:

Brisbane

I began to collect objects which clearly fascinated me more than the beauty of the natural landscape in which they were discarded, yet it was the beauty of the landscape which made the objects become outstanding - almost alien.

I started with still-life and started to arrange these objects into a constructed reality, and record them with drawing and painting. As the arrangement of the objects became more complex (in an attempt to depart from traditional still-life), I proceded to construct new objects which began to dominate my work.

New concerns arose and old ones became more important. I am no longer concerned with making an aesthetically pleasing object but rather, challenging the aesthetic. Creating an interesting object is more important. From this, bringing the objects into a state of uneasy equilibrium, and combining this with the resulting tension to create a dynamic energy, has become the crucial element in my work.

UNTITLED; found objects and wire; 1989 30 cm x 55 cm