Year 12 2016

The 2016 HSC Major works 

COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Maddi Alderdice

 Since the dawn of time there has always been conflict. The origins of war and reason for its beginning are often forgotten as fighting continues. What remains and is remembered is the impact. The Fear. The Terror. The Loss. The Grief. The Sadness. The Hollow Emptiness. 
At what point did we deem an entire nation, religion or culture the enemy as a result of a minority’s actions? We have categorised the innocent with the evil. Children suffer the wrath of our destructive actions, losing mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, but most unnervingly their childhood. 
Soldiers and society are taught to obey, live and act upon misguided morals that deem the lives of others lesser than our own. Irrational fear is instilled in the gullible nature of mankind by those that drive our nations’ ideologies of culturist supremacy, those that we trust with the safety and security or our fellow people.
We deem these actions lawful with the idea that if we do not protect our own, if we do not fight the “enemy” then we will become the victim.  

WAKE IN FRIGHT (AFTER FUSELI)
Tara Parkinson

​For years my sleeping pattern has been interrupted by irrational fears of the darkness and what lies beyond my bedside. I wake to my own scream, with no memory of a bad dream or nightmare.
 
Cases of night terrors are most prevalent in infant and childhood years, many of its victims growing out of it as they transition into adulthood, however unlike the majority, my own trepidations have intensified throughout my teenage years. My family and friends continue to find me in tears, sweats and inconsolable states of apprehension throughout the night. This experience can affect my life, as I try to function on little sleep.
 
My work is both an exploration of the flood of anxieties that wash over me in the darkest hours of the night - as well as the irrational beings I allow the shadows of the night to create. It’s not what wakes me that makes me afraid, it is the images my imagination creates out of the darkness as I move from the subconscious to reality. Through my drawings I want to encourage the audience to contemplate what it is that haunts their dreams.
 
I have used charcoal because it presents the darkest black, like the night. It allows expressive techniques to represent the chaotic experience. It’s messy, dirty, leaves traces of itself everywhere - just like my memories of the night infiltrate my days.
 
In making my Body of Work I have been influenced by Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare and have included the frightened horse from this painting. I have also looked at images of 1950s and 60s Scream Queens, like those you might find in a Hitchcock movie. Australian artists like Heidi Yardley and Trent Parke have also been a point of reference.
 

OWN BOX OF MEMORIES
Dyan Jeresano

​Like a timeline, looking from left to right Own Box of Memories is a work that visually illustrates my distinct experiences from two distant countries.
 
My work is made from two different canvases. The one at the left represents my country of birth, the place where I first saw what life can offer to someone. The vertical strokes represents the heavy limitations placed among young people in terms of what direction they can take in pursuing what they are passionate about in contrast to what this country can offer. 
 
After moving in here, different opportunities opened up. Things that were only just a dream were able to become reality, including owning a house and a car, thus the important symbols in my work. For me, our house is like a box that will slowly be filled in with new stories and memories that can hopefully be achieved in the future. 

I DIDN'T SEE IT COMING
Georgia Maidens

Cattle are individuals and have their own personalities. Like humans they have emotional ups and downs. When it is a rainy miserable day, they too are miserable, just like us.
My Body of Work is as much an exploration of cattle as unique, emotional individuals as it is an exploration of material practice.
The Scottish Highland Cow with its often blinding hair works for me as a symbol of the blind eye many consumers and farmers must turn to what comes at the end for beef cattle. Not contemplating the end stage of meat production allows us to enjoy our steak guilt free.
The title refers to the often friendly and trusting nature of cattle. They will graze peacefully without any knowledge or vision of what is to come, at least that’s what we tell ourselves.

HEIRLOOM
Emma Galley

​Throughout a farmer’s life, there are many hardships and challenges; Drought, Flood, Fire.
 
Despite some negative societal views on farming, a farmer is a provider, a strong, capable and adaptable person at the mercy of Mother Nature and her skies.
 
Farming is a choice, a lifestyle, not just a responsibility placed on younger generations in farming families. It takes dedication. A passion for the country life.
 
My Pop, Father and Brother walk along the land in a specific order. This notion of movement involves the passing on and continuing of a precious heirloom – the life and knowledge of farming, from generation to generation. Something I am truly proud of, along with the men whose perseverance inspires me. 

SELF-PRETTY
Rachel Peadon

​Narcissism is the excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance.
 
Narcissists are often individuals who strive for aesthetic perfection. This unrealistic attempt of attaining, in their mind what is an achievable flawlessness, can lead to an unavoidable, self-absorbed unhappiness over one’s own trouble. Or in other words, self-pity.
 
People who are exceedingly concerned with how they appear to other people, often find themselves drowning in this obsession, and demanding a non-existent approval – am I pretty enough, am I good enough? They are trapped by their own psychological and subconscious impurities, and it is the narcissist’s sole responsibility to push through these obstructions.
 
Influencing artist: Michael Zavros
 

BEYOND THE BREAKERS
Ava Dennis

​“Make sure you stay between the flags!”
“Don’t go too far out”
Most Australians are familiar with the experience of going to the beach as children and gradually developing the confidence and strength to swim beyond the breakers. In my Body of Work I have used this common journey as a metaphor to explore growth and rites of passage. Slowly gaining my own independence by going further out into the void of the ocean, without grasping onto the hands of my mum and dad and being rolled and dumped by the force of water allowed for my own self-reliance.
For me, the decision to use my brother as the subject of this piece was inevitable. I watched him floating serenely on the ocean’s surface and knew it was a memory I wanted to keep. He too was moving beyond the breakers – he was making mistakes and learning from the unpredictable nature of growing up.
All of my memories of childhood have my brother in them, through all of the transitions of developing my identity. On the verge of independence, I see I’ll never go a day without thinking about our memories together – regardless of the tides, the rips and the waves of our adult lives.

RAPUNZEL AND THE VAGABONDS
Amelia Scullard

Once upon a time, there existed a book. It contained many wondrous stories of adventuresand sword fights. Charming princes and beautiful princesses. Animals talked and birds sung. Magic spells cast and curses abolished. Kingdoms saved and evil vanquished. The prince married the princess and they lived happily ever after.

Once the story had ended, the delicate pages had been turned, and there were no pictures left to see, the book was closed. 
Yet the story was not finished. It is not finished. It is yet to end. You see, the ideas presented in fairy tales are simply parallels or ‘magic mirrors’ to our own world. Each notion, each symbol is a message, a metaphor for an element of life. 
Within fairy tales the story often goes that there is a female, who, sheltered by her parents, does not have the experience and life outside the one they created for her and guided her towards. Then there is a male, who does not seem to have any parents at all. He is able to create his own path, dictate his own actions and make his own choices. He is not constricted by the confines of parental control. 
Such an idea is transposed into today’s world. There are many stigmas and stereotypes when a parent is raising a child. A family may have both a boy and a girl, yet the way each is treated varies. It may not be intentional; however, it is ingrained. 
A daughter is often sheltered, protected. However, the parents do not do it to spite the child or deprive them intentionally. They simply mean well. 
A son often has less confines. Whilst the parents still love him and want to protect him, they are not as controlling. They are able to walk their own paths, act without question. It is almost simple.

FAITH AND REASON: THE DILEMMA OF DOUBTING THOMAS
Grace Kinsela

​Since time immemorial, the very thing which has ensured the survival of the human race is our ability to extract meaning and purpose from the world around us, to liberate ourselves from a close-minded existence in the thirst for knowledge.
As humanity has evolved into the twenty-first century, science and spirituality have become the two portals through which we view the world. However, there is a disconnect between the age-old foes of spirituality and reason. This is perpetuated by the resistance of both to humbly accept and engage with each-other.
Thus is the dilemma of doubting Thomas, as doubt without compromise inhibits the spiritual and intellectual growth of humanity.
In the style of chiaroscuro, typical of the romanticised depictions of biblical scenes of the late renaissance period, I used charcoal and graphite to contrast the traditional with the clinical white background of the “disciples”.
The key to reconciling these two nemeses, however, can only be found in their willingness to respect the value of each, playing a vital role towards the survival and the growth of the human race.

GROWING PAINS
Taje Fowler

​The drawn Portraits of my mother and sister encapsulate growth.
My mother is pregnant with my youngest sister, so there is the growth that is the process of pregnancy. My sister is looking out to the unknown, to the endless possibility she will grow up and start her own life.
The placement of the hands suggests that their linkage with each other with always be there.
The negative space in the portraits conveys place for growth and change. 

WEIGHT.
Gemma Handley

​To be underwater is to be weightless, to be weightless is to be free.
 
This freedom comes at a cost though. Become consumed in the weightlessness, free of accountability and care and you run the risk of drowning.
 
This is not another fat kid’s story. There are times I do assume that role but it does not define me.
 
Although exploring personal struggles with body image and weight, the main focus of my drawings is the suffocating aspects of parental pressure and expectation. In this pair of images, I float in the water and my mum looks down concernedly upon me. She worries whether I will stay on the surface or sink below. She is ready to reach in and save me from myself.
 
‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ is a battle parents must face on a day to day basis. Sometimes all you need is to be thrown a life line when they unknowingly throw you an anchor.

I utilise self-portrait as a way to reverse perspective from how I see myself to my interpretation of how I am seen by others. This is a Body of Work that requires fearlessness and I share my story not as a way to seek pity or define myself as a number, but as a venue for a viewer to say “I’ve been there too”.
 
From here, I make a conscious decision to swim not sink. 

NOT MY HISTORY
Senuri Perera

​Art in itself is a method of creating history.
 
Every artist takes a chance that their work could be the one that becomes timeless in history, but for whose history am I painting for?
 
From the beginning of time, Europe has been the melting pot of art history. From the Lascaux caves in France, to the birth of Renaissance in Italy, Europe in the art world stands as the most culturally rich entity.
 
Yet when I painted a picture of a clearly non-Caucasian baby in the backdrop of a cave painting, it felt like art history would not be mine, no matter what I painted.
 
The intricacy I have weaved into my artwork symbolizes the tight web that is art history, and how Not My History is a way of subverting the common stereotype, that art history resolves around Europe.  

PERMISSION TO LOSE GUARANTEES LOSS
Chloe Parkins

​Accepting death is never easy, especially when it is a family member close to the heart.
During my childhood and growth, I was exposed to nursing homes and watching the grief of my mother standing powerless as the slow and debilitating disease of Alzheimer’s took over my grandfather. My work expresses this highly personal experience with the disease of Alzheimer’s. It deals with the idea of remembering and eventually letting go.
The drawing of my mother and grandfather on my parents’ wedding day reflects back upon a time when everything was normal and time had not yet become such an incredibly precious thing. The drawing of the hands holding each other is symbolic of the remaining memories that we hold dear, and of letting go of my grandfather as he become more ill and passed away. The small etching of the grandfather clock is indicative of the fragility of time and the limited time you have in an instance like this.
My body of work expresses loss, memory and pain and explores the relationship of my grandfather and mother to this day. 

BLINDED BY A LIGHT (MOTH TO A FLAME)
Madeline Baker

​Living in a regional area, people often feel the need to escape the secluded and quiet nature of their town and gravitate towards the city. But, it is often easy to get lost amongst the bright lights of the city and become overwhelmed.
 
After the initial excitement of the city wears off, the unfavourable aspects of living in such a chaotic and busy environment become more prevalent. upon the return to regional areas, that many undertake, the smaller scale and hometown-feel are far more appreciated. 
 
This work was inspired by my love for the city lights, and my strong desire to adventure beyond my small hometown and experience life in the city.

NOW I AM BECOMING DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS (BEST INTENTIONS 1945-2001)
Matthew Parish

​In 1938 scientists discovered a process, which converts mass into energy.
The applications of such a process had the potential to revolutionise the power creation industry. However, it was used to create a nuclear bomb in 1945, the deadliest weapon on earth.
It wasn’t until 1954, 16 years after, that nuclear fission was used to better society through power generation.
Similarly drones have been used in military weaponry since 2001 and only recently have they been developed for commercial and domestic purposes such as assisting in search and rescue operations.
Why does it take mankind so long to realise technology’s true potential for good, and so little time for evil?

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
Jack Allen

​My self portrait is flanked by drawings of my big brothers. They are literally by my side and have my back.
 
My brothers have different personalities, ideologies, habits and interests, and their influence upon me is great.
 
Big brothers are teachers. They pave the way and pass on experience. They help shape the person I am becoming.

PETAL TO THE MEDAL
Carmen Ho

​The Chinese term 加油, is a widely used cheer to enthuse persistence and fortitude in people who are becoming disheartened in context of ambitions and goals. It translates as ‘add oil’, which can be applied to amassing force and acceleration of machines and maintaining the flame of oil lamps.
 
Students of eastern philosophies become burdened by an exceedingly competitive environment, dowsing themselves with superfluous knowledge and ritualising understanding of theoretical mechanisms. These efforts seek to maximise job prospects and transition them into a stable adulthood.
 
This intellectual discrimination embedded in the principles of success exposes the fragility of youth and the capacity to live it. Consequently, students are debilitated by their lack of interpersonal communication and spiritual wellbeing. Governed by expectation, even self-expression becomes indoctrinated as a methodical process.
 
Art inspired by: Stephen Bush, Wang Qisong, Tetsuya Ishidap

ESCAPE
Shane Splitt

​In this drawing I show a space where you can escape your life and take on a new persona. The characters are the bravest, most powerful and most dangerous people who fight for what they believe in.
Growing up, this is all I have wanted to do, defend my country with everything I have just like the people in these games. My drive to the armed forces lead me to these games. They became a major part of my life, they were my escape from this world to a world where I could make a difference.
All these characters when faced with overwhelming odds never give in, they keep fighting to do the best they possibly can. This has influenced me, as when I get into the armed forces I will give it my all to make a difference. 

ARE YOU LOST LITTLE BOY?
Sophie Logan

​Women’s fashion has significantly evolved over time.
 
I have chosen to put the audience in Elizabeth Taylor's perspective. If this womanly screen icon of the 60s was to see Miley Cyrus in her world she would think of her as a boy. In Taylor's world there was an expectation of feminine, to look sophisticated and 'beautiful'. So within the artwork I am portraying the development of fashion and the changed roles of women.


By adding the two self portraits, I am personally observing these two disparate archetypes and questioning where I fit in. My facial expression is confused and doubtful to connect to ideas about being judged and feeling accepted based on how I look and how I present myself. 

AUTOMATON
Shanae Gosper

Have you ever stopped to think about how much of what you believe is manipulated by what is being shown around you?
This question is what started my delving into the issue that is media manipulation. We are surrounded by media every day. Phones, radios, newspapers, televisions, people on the street repeating what they saw on the news – all examples of media. But what is the media showing – is it true? Is there a bias in order to sway the viewers in a certain direction?
The aim of Automaton was to allow the audience to form their own opinion on the issue of media manipulation and stop and think about how much of what they believe is created through the media portraying situations in a certain light.
Automaton refers to a mechanical device made in the imitation of a human being. The absence of personal opinion is featured within these machines, and thus through my artwork, the audience can ponder – am I just an automaton? Am I at mercy of the hands producing media?
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
Malcolm X

UNAMED
Sarah Honeysett

IT'S OKAY...I'LL MAKE FRIENDS WITH MEMORY
Leanna Mills

Memory; it is a concept that on some level we all understand and it is the central theme of my major work.
My piece centres around the journey of memory; we are born, we live, we remember, as old age and sickness take their toll we can only hope that our loved ones will remember for us and when we pass away we are able to live in the memories of those we have left behind.
Earlier this year my Aunt Debbie passed away from terminal brain cancer.
Cancer has been a sickness that has plagued my family years but this time we seemed unable to beat it. As she went through treatment and surgery she began to lose her memory.
The elephant pictured is likened to a guardian figure, the elephant never forgets a face and thus I used it here as a guardian to our memory of Debbie. The brain of course represents her cancer battle, but also the home of memory, are our loved ones really gone if they exist in our memories? The other images are all moments with her three kids that are my attempt through art to immortalise her memory.
This work is dedicated lovingly to all those people that we have lost in this world and an attempt to keep them alive in memory. 

THE GOOD WIFE'S GUIDE
​Gabrielle Bennett

​In 2015 in Australia, one woman a week died as a result of domestic violence.
 
As I began to develop my Body of Work around the issue of domestic violence, I was confronted by the disapproval my ideas were met with. “You can’t do that – that’s not really something people want to see”. “People don’t really talk about that”. I was surprised because it seemed like despite the prevalence of stories of domestic violence in the media and the emergence of social movements like white ribbon day, these comments seemed to come from an era when you didn’t talk about what went on behind closed doors. This seemed to suggest that there is still considerable taboo surrounding the issue and that many incidents are never brought to light.
 
I started to look at images of 1950s housewives. Women who presented a happy and polished exterior with regard to their home, their children and themselves, when that may not have been the actual situation. This was society’s expectation of them and can be likened to society’s expectation that negative images of domestic violence be hidden from common view.
 
I have used an actual publication from the 1950s, The Good Wife’s Guide, to base my work on. This manual explains how a woman should treat her husband. The most shocking piece of advice is that “a good wife should always know her place”.
 
Domestic violence should never be secreted away. This is a major issue in Australia. People who are affected need to know that they are not hidden and forgotten.

BUT DREAMS HAVE WAYS OF TURNING INTO NIGHTMARES
Emma Blessing

​Its every little girl’s dream to own a pony but the harsher side of restraining such a powerful animal is rarely shown.
My artwork symbolises this harsh reality whilst highlighting my own injury suffered at the teeth of a horse.
The boy pictured suffered a fractured skull as a result of being kicked in the head at a park by an untethered horse in the United Kingdom and the compound wrist fracture is a very common injury sustained by horse riders as outstretching your hands is a defence mechanism to a substantial fall.  

THE WOUNDS RUN DEEP
Megan Dickson

​Often when we think of a soldier we accompany them with the thought of honour and bravery. We are often oblivious to the internal damage caused by the sacrifices made.
 
My Body of Work thus provides knowledge of the unseen. It presents what we are naïve to. By opening up the uniform, the pain and consequences of war are exposed, revealing the loss of innocence and the reality of the psychological pain of the soldier. In the artwork, we uncover that the damage to the soldier is worse than what can be seen on the surface.
 
There is a cost to our involvement in overseas conflict and unfortunately that cost is born mostly by the soldiers we send away.
 
 

LIFE OF THE RICH AND FALLEN
Madison Murphy

​In our society an individual is often defined by their proximity to financial wealth.
In my artwork I aim to explore the divide between those who face great privilege, and those that are left forgotten or on the streets.
Though these two women are from two classes that are separated by millions of dollars, in the end all of their wealth, or lack thereof, means nothing. Regardless of our differences, our class, race, gender or lifestyle we all end up in the exact same place.