THE BODY OF WORK

For Paul Cézanne the most important thing in his paintings was the relationship between colours and forms in space, not the precise identities of these objects. I find Cézanne's work intriguing in the way that he uses simple representations to create a work of complexity through colour and shape. My body of work represents Cézanne's still-life painting, The Basket of Apples, in the physical plane while referencing his painting style. Cézanne aimed to create works of beauty from the ordinary. He once said, “With an apple, I will astonish Paris”, influencing modern art, and inspiring me.

“In Hollywood, nobody knows anything.” William Golding While many chase the dream of becoming Hollywood-famous, they turn a blind eye to the perspective that isn't so glamorous – or choose not to face it. Using the collodion wet plate process gave me a granular texture and chiaroscuro effect to express the sombre and poignant life of these icons and to represent the golden period of Hollywood. I matched each model to the costume and make-up that best suited them and their corresponding icon. William Goldman's quote resonated with my concept, not only because of what it says, but who he was – one of Hollywood's greatest scriptwriters.

The mind is a cognitive faculty that houses the thoughts and consciousness of an individual. I was inspired by the metaphysical concept of mind­–body dualism that claims that the mind and the body are two distinct and separable factors. I have explored this dualism through psychological portraits, one physical and one non-physical, representing the impossibility of grasping the magnitude of our mind as it elaborates on itself continually. Thus, going further than biological knowledge, I challenge our perceptions of truly knowing those closest to us. I have used a mixed media approach to capture the complexities of the mind.

My body of work explores the relationship between life and death while acknowledging the beautiful, inextricable link between the two.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” - Michelangelo. I explored self-creation and emancipation in my body of work, inspired by classical Greek and Roman marble sculptures of the perfected human form. The octopus, itself a symbol of creativity, is one of the few creatures that manipulates tools for its own benefit. The creature’s tentacles clasp the tools as it hews itself from the very stone that entraps or births it. My work pays homage to the idea that art imitates life. The search for perfection, which the ancients strove for, is still worthy of pursuit today.

The ways in which we recognise styles of artists and characteristics of iconic artworks are fundamentally by colour, shape and texture. For ArchModernist, I selected one modern artist and one modern/contemporary architect as inspiration for five original architectural designs to explore parallels in practices in the depiction of non-representative form. My body of work was created using laser-cutting technology and light and space to highlight the transcendence of concepts across artistic and architectural works. My work is a homage to modernists of both the art and architectural world, and establishes that there is a universal communication of ideas in the contemporary context.

Humans are so involved with technology that we let our lives be run by it. As technology is controlled by a sequence of 1s and 0s, for my body of work I changed all of the numbers to binary to produce a simple spread of black and white inverted images. The work represents humanity’s toxic relationship with technology as well as showing how alike we all are, as each person photographed has a different nationality. My intent was to highlight that, while society attempts to define us by numbers, a number does not define who we are as people.

Biomimicry: designing new products using patterns and strategies that occur in nature. The inspiration for my body of work was the form of viruses, bacteria and cancer cells as viewed under an electron microscope. Struck by the simple purity of the forms within the surrounding environment, I represented what I saw as an investigation of form and space. I pushed the medium of tissue paper to its limits, creating organic forms from geometric shapes. Through manipulation, the material transcends the world of the organic and metamorphic, taking on its own lifeform and transforming into biomimicry.

My body of work is a clear response to coral bleaching and plastic pollution in the ocean. My ceramic reef systems represent what's occurring all around the globe, with pieces of plastic making the imbalance between nature and manufactured waste evident. While maintaining visual appeal, the plastic stands as a cruel reminder of how the synthetic elements effortlessly intertwine with the organic construction of coral reefs. Glass marbles create depth in the crevices of my sculptures and, combined with the pieces of plastic, help the audience to visually recognise how coral starve, leaving their ‘bleached’ skeleton behind.

My body of work explores my personal experience of listening to the stories of my grandparents who left Latvia and emigrated to Australia. Nature is deeply embedded in Latvian culture; my family's surname is derived from the Latvian word for 'birch tree'. Thus, I have used the recurring motif of the birch tree to represent my family's narrative embedded in the landscape and history of Latvia. The symbols that make up the frames draw on Baltic mythology with particular reference to the sun, which signifies life, unity and the eternal.

My body of work highlights the overuse of plastic in modern food packaging. Society seems to place great value on single-use plastic, with supermarkets sheathing their products in it. By presenting these 'throwaway' items as my subject, using a traditional vanitas style and the medium of ceramics, I expose the ironies in how we collectively value plastic. By representing something like a chip bag in fastidious detail I place the significance of art on it, and position the viewer to consider the value they put on these items.

Within my body of work I have explored different aspects of consumerism and how it can affect individuals within society. Our society is fixated on short-term gratification and satisfaction. My intent was to represent how people are overly focused on materialism. All the clothes in my work were used or discarded items but I have given them further value beyond their initial purpose.

My body of work, a six-minute experimental video, takes the traditional Greek myth of Narcissus into a futuristic context. It critiques contemporary society and our values in relation to human connections, relationships and the universal human experience of Love. CTRL+C follows the story of a protagonist searching to find their perfect love in a virtual world. However, what happens if your perfect match is a better version of yourself ­– what if it is a digital clone of yourself? The storyline uses metaphor to criticise the significance of 'human relationships' in a world of moral decay.

After asking others about the meaning of my body of work, I have come to realise that its true meaning lies within your subjective interpretation – whether it be the fragility of memory; how friends can become fragments of a past life; the lifeless homogeneity of everyday life; the loss of individuality due to the pressures of a conformist society; or something else.

In my representations of an angler fish and squid/octopus, I include the defining features of each animal and leave the rest to the viewer’s imagination, mirroring the idea that the deep ocean can only be imagined by most people. My fascination with the ocean, fishing and sea life led me down this path. I found the mediums of metal and charcoal most effective, and used welding to create solid single-piece forms, representing the smooth and streamlined surfaces of the creatures. By heat treating the metal I was able to attain an iridescent effect to express the colour-changing qualities of the squid.

While shifts in the physical realm are defined and apparent, transitions in one's mental state are subtle. Yet these are the things that govern our outlook and, ultimately, the way we approach fleeting moments of solitude in our lives. In our increasingly urban environment, many people experience difficulty in attaining comfort when left to their own devices. Departure explores the psychological journey people embark on as they seek to face uncertainty with composure. The varying degrees of ease in each person’s facial expression and gestures during moments of mundanity and, seemingly, stagnancy represent how the ego manifests itself when a person is alone.

Many people have to leave their home country and live in a culture completely foreign to them. This is the concept behind my body of work, but it was a difficult concept to physically represent. I had to experiment with different ideas to find the right balance of emotional depth and familiarise the audience with the reality that such people face. The range of difficulties that I experienced include: bubbles in the epoxy resin; creating a clay mould for the concrete; the bronzing of the tiny woman as it was such a small object to bronze; using the laser cutter to print the maps.

I wanted my body of work to represent my culture so my teacher and I did some research and found out that the island I was from would be wiped out in about 50 years, so I wanted to share it around to let everyone know and to make a change.

My body of work is about the displacement of a person’s identity when they are removed from a traditional homeland. Expressive lines carved into lino plates represent the figures of my grandfather and grandmother currently, and my grandfather in his youth. Using lino and carborundum printing as an exaggerating mechanism, I printed the portrait images onto tarlatan cloth in order to layer the images, creating a blurred multitude of faces and identities. Blurred movement indicates transportation, broadening the scale of identities degenerating as a result of war, specifically identifying the Yugoslav wars which stimulated the mass removal of civilians such as my grandparents.

As technology integrates itself within all aspects of human life through social media platforms and the like, the notion of a 'digital identity' has steadily become more elaborate. This has given rise to global concerns about the loss of privacy through surveillance by governments and other controlling structures. My body of work is an interactive mirror that represents these forces by reconstructing the environment in various digital forms and continuously surveying your movements. We wilfully ignore the danger to our privacy and freedom posed by these social platforms, as our comfortable dependence on these digital constructions has taught us to not think twice about it.

My body of work comments on the impermanence of man made structures contrasted by the everlasting powerful ocean.

Escaping the Psychle explores the limitations of human thought and the notion of a universal consciousness that traps us within a cycle of thought, limiting us from being able to think freely. Using light, scale and unconventional metallic sculpting materials I have overcome the physical limits of the sculptural medium, creating a kinetic sculpture which represents the mental entrapment that we all face. The deliberate incorporation of the symbolic human figure and over sixty unique cog designs invites the audience to visualise this subconscious entrapment, prompting the question, 'How do we escape the Psychle?'

My body of work explores art’s traditional interest with intimate feminine moments, while also considering the voyeuristic undercurrent present in many artworks featuring female nudes. Motivated by the consistent and perhaps invasive portrayal of the female form throughout art history, I used a variety of materials to re-imagine, subvert, confront and re-contextualise the way the female form has been represented by artists such as Rodin, Degas and Brian Dunlop. I then constructed the relief sculpture to introduce a concrete representation of the male gaze.

My body of work is an abstract expressionist painting based on the concept of femininity, using conventional colours and feminine forms such as rounded curves, circles and organic lines. My influences are Georgia O'Keefe and Lee Krasner, both modernist, feminist, abstract painters working at a time dominated by male practitioners. The multilayered, textured surface of my painting coupled with the assembly of overlapping, sensual, curved shapes alludes to the many aspects of womanhood, and to the array of complex identities and representations within the realm of 'femaleness'. Ultimately, my painting is a tribute to female strength and empowerment, and a celebration of femininity.

My body of work is a representation of the effects of Alzheimer's disease on both the individual affected and their surrounding family. I chose to use ceramics as my medium as the fragile, breakable material expresses the fragility of life and human connection. The decay of a person’s mind is represented in the form of a building being destroyed, while the collection of Polaroid photos and the sculpted hands give insight into my personal experience, having to witness my grandfather's decline due to this incurable disease.

Fragility is a tribute to my grandfather, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. It explores the complex and fragile state of the human mind, represented through the intricate form of entangled coils and precariously balanced brains in conjunction with a sense of leaching colour. My work expresses the sad reality of the effects of Alzheimer's, where the mind is slowly destroyed and only leaves a fragment of the person behind.

They are the curious, sometimes frightening, sometimes humorous creatures that inhabit Gothic architecture. And they are now making appearances in 21st century buildings. If Sydney Harbour Bridge had a gargoyle, it may look like this.

My body of work is about being spiritually strong. I am proud to be a descendant of the oldest continuing culture in the world, Australia's original peoples / First Peoples of this country. Through photography and sculpture I have made a personal journey exploring my identity, learning about my Country, community, family law, sovereign knowledge, custodianship and expectations of my culture. It is my intention to have our culture and history, our place as this continent's First People, embraced and celebrated as a unique feature of this continent's story. To reclaim what we should never have lost or been denied – who I am.

My photographic skills are strongest when I have a deep connection with my subject matter. That is why I have based my body of work on my love for my grandparents and the love between them. My work explores the intimate relationship between my grandmother and grandfather. In an Asian household such as mine, people do not really say 'I love you', but express their love and affection through their actions, which sometimes can be taken for granted. My work is a short story representing different stages of my grandparents’ lives.

My body of work is a visual collage of my identity, represented through self-portraits in varying media, and in various idle animations. The work exposes my own insecurities and indecisiveness around self-expression and the act of creating something to be viewed. My initial aversion to painting a self-portrait is the main reason that I created multiples, with each figure expressing a different emotional response to being on display. Through the repeated reworking and erasing of each piece, imprints of the previous layer are left behind, and inform what comes next.

Imagine if you could buy freedom? For some, the cost is much greater than for others. Gold is indicative of privilege, wealth, social class and freedom. Gold is also the colour of the thermal blankets that refugees drape themselves in. For refugees, gold is not a symbol to display their prosperity or liberty, but a tool for survival. Playing upon gold’s associations of commerce, celebrity and wealth, in jarring contrast to the plight of refugees, my body of work’s intent is to challenge the viewer by asking them to reconsider their understanding of the true value of freedom, and its cost.

My body of work represents a genetic comparison of my father and grandfather. The work’s overbearing scale consumes audiences, allowing them to ‘step into the shoes’ of two remarkable men and develop a personal connection with them. My grandfather was a shoemaker.

My work is an expression of my affinity and love for the desert landscape, particularly Uluru. It also expresses my concern for the damage inflicted on our precious natural environment. It was a breathtaking experience standing at the base of Uluru – a solid and enduring site. Using both memory and my photographs, I painted my own representations of the landscape. The work explores the disparity between the earth's natural and enduring phenomenon of Uluru, where change occurs across millennia, with the ephemeral nature of our consumerist society. The title suggests a comparison of the naturally infinite with our increasingly finite resources.

Yōkai are a class of supernatural monsters, spirits and demons from Japanese folklore. They range from the malevolent to the mischievous, occasionally bringing good fortune to those who encounter them. They are often used to explain supernatural or unaccountable phenomena and I believe they reflect many of the characteristics of the human heart and human nature. My sculptures are based on the Kappa, Tengu and Oni Yōkai. I have used dry needle felting and wet felting techniques to create my sculptures out of wool roving.

The utilitarian nature of many everyday objects often masks the beauty in their form. In my body of work I question the unconscious differentiation that we make between art and household tools, highlighting the aesthetic details of these forms by removing them from their intended purpose. Liquid porcelain served as the perfect medium as it removed the transparency of glass, allowing the viewer to see past the objects' lines both physically and metaphorically. Porcelain also enabled me to add an unglazed surface to the works, thus removing their ability to function conventionally.

My body of work represents the process of restoration occurring in my homeland of Afghanistan. Just as nature can flourish and overcome the destruction caused by war, wild flora and mushrooms emerge from within the cracks of each broken ceramic. In the Japanese Kintsugi technique of mending broken things with gold, the cicatrix of each piece becomes a thing of beauty. I was inspired by Frida Kahlo's own exploration of her cultural heritage, my work embodying the hope that one day Afghanistan will regain its rich culture. As humans, it is inevitable that we encounter adversity. However, through this we can find a new form of beauty and healing.

As we dive further into our technologically saturated world, the need to be constantly interconnected and perpetually engaged in a digital reality can overwhelm the individual. My body of work explores the sense of technological anxiety, constructing a narrative around our inability to escape total interconnection with our ‘digitality’. Through the use of hybrid form triptych stop-motion animation, the individual's conflict with our compulsion for media represents the larger social turmoil. Using elements of the Brechtian verfremdungseffekt [distancing effect] and visceral imagery, my intention is to activate awareness of our uncontrollable engagement, as we become consumed by our own innovation.

My body of work explores the theme of my own LGBTQI+ identity. I chose this concept because I am constantly re-evaluating who I am or who I could be in relation to my own identity as well as my place within society, and considering how these re-evaluations are affected by the people around me. I used monochrome black and white to challenge the perception of identity as 'colourful' subject matter, turning it into something basic, requiring viewers to look deeper into the work. My intent is to represent how important your identity is to yourself, and how it may appear multifaceted yet simple to those around you.

Pulchra Tacita Caelum (Beautiful Silent Sky) provides an opportunity for the audience to view the fleeting qualities of the sky and clouds, and remember our sense of awareness in a world where we tend to keep our heads held low. My intent is to represent the ethereal tides of time through moments where the sky speaks a beauty that often goes unnoticed. It is my personal representation of an aesthetic but also a collective experience that individuals have with the heavenly allure of the sky. No matter the time or place, the sky is there, ever changing yet always the same.

I have used printmaking to explore ideas related to the cultural and physical site of Shanghai. It is a city that is constantly changing and evolving in our postmodern world. My body of work represents the ‘mashing together’ of past and present through a series of layered prints and woodblocks.

My body of work draws heavily on inspiration from popular culture: films like Mad Max and Transformers. Other influences include artworks by great artists such as Banksy, Kim Jung Gi and Brett Whiteley, as well as the heavily congested roadways of New South Wales. My artmaking processes were quite diverse, starting with large draft sketches on brown paper, then refining individual elements using digital means, and finally transferring each form onto card using pen and alcohol-based markers. I believe good entertainment leaves an audience with a lasting memory; the purpose of my work is to simply entertain, like a static, monochromatic action movie.

My body of work intends to visually capture the collective experience of individual awareness and presence of mind. I was interested in the concept of ‘sonder’, the realisation that every other person has a life as vivid and complex as your own. I began to experiment with Indian ink and its fluid, spontaneous nature to represent the psychological and emotional state of each individual. Each portrait demands contemplation by the audience: a time to connect and engage with the shared human experience.

Sticks and Stones … is about racial discrimination. Influenced by Ben Quilty, Peter Sharp, John Coburn and Albert Tucker's works, I have used clay bones to represent the title. The sculpture represents the individual with a particular cultural background, with the 'skin' revealing words spoken by others, and the parrot signifying Australians. Each phrase identifies words spoken by bullies, the feelings that are felt and the words spoken by the mother. The shadow paintings represent the effect of time on the individual's growth and acceptance of their own identity.

Artworks create a visual verse, with its metre found in tone and its lyrics in marks; it is a verse that translates the complex and ever-changing narrative of life for an immeasurable audience. In recording places of significance in my own life, my body of work reflects on the silent, almost subconscious, relationships that we each form with familiar spaces. Just as a medium is built up on paper, so too are meaningful memories layered through the making of marks. This work is intended to reacquaint you with a familiar space; somewhere that has stirred an emotion or left a lasting imprint on you.

My body of work uses structures to investigate the disparity between human agency – the ability individuals have to make their own choices – and influential elements such as social class, gender, religion and ethnicity. The work is a scathing social commentary on 'The Block', Redfern, owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company. An environment that was once filled with vibrancy and culture is now dedicated to new development plans. Using clay and ceramic construction I juxtaposed organic and geometric slab structures to create forms that represent the significance of the existing Indigenous and international communities as opposed to the new proposed development.

In my body of work I explored the creation of abstract worlds by focusing on small details within nature. Using macro photography, simple forms and colours emerged which reveal ambiguities and uncertainties about the subject matter. The texture of the fine art paper blurs the boundaries between photography and painting.

My body of work explores and appreciates the richness and perpetual beauty of the natural landscape by looking through the lens of texture and form. Threads of Nature represents the important and fragile, yet strong, elements of the landscape and their fundamental interconnectedness. We may not see and comprehend the layers of earth beneath the surface, but they work together to provide strength and resilience to support and balance the ever-powerful life force of nature that surrounds us.

In my body of work I have manipulated aerial photography of oceanic environments, taking the vast seascape and condensing it into a contained, reimagined space. My intent is to represent the impact of human activity, forever reducing our natural world. The topographical angle emphasises the surreal nature of the world, as well as its feminine characteristics. Conversely, the photographs also work to display the process of regeneration and growth, and how the ocean is a vessel for environmental rebirth.

It is in the natural order of things to grow and deteriorate. Everything is impermanent, even the eventual decay that we all face as humans. Trompe l'oeil represents the cyclical nature of life and death by drawing parallels between decayed still life and human deterioration. My intent is to challenge the basis of traditional vanitas art by subverting the notion of decay as a symbol of growth and new chapters. Using the transformative power of time as the foundation of my body of work, I express the transience of earthly elements and the impermanence of death in an ever-changing world.

My body of work has a refined, simple, weightless aesthetic that represents a harmonious marriage between modern technological advancement and an organic language of natural elements through form. These works are a dynamic sculptural form of architecture, indicating the possibilities for the design and construction of contemporary buildings. My intention is to design buildings that develop out of their natural surroundings, to promote greater coherence between the individual and their environment. All forms take on a minimalistic aesthetic using reductive design elements with minimal ornamentation, to return the audience’s focus to the natural composition of the land.