A sneak peek at the works on display at the Judith Dey Gallery
The Judith Dey Gallery showcases drawings, painting, felting, lights and sculpture by Visual Arts and Textiles and Applied Science students from Years 7 to 12. Head of Visual Arts, Photographic and Digital Media Ms Michele Brennan preselected the works for framing before Visual Arts assistant Ms Michele Edinger pulled together the exhibition.
On display this Term at the gallery are Year 7’s lino cut animal prints and Year 8’s Micro Macro flowers in acrylic. Chrissie of Year 8 chose to paint a native Australian Waratah. She says Art teacher Ms Lewington helped the girls create a three-dimensional effect on their flowers that "make the object pop out of the page". There is also a selection of Year 9’s Solar Plate Prints, created “by exposing UV ray reactive aluminium plates, that were inked and put through the printing press,” Ms Edinger explains.
Years 10’s Flying Machine Sculptures, based on Da Vinci’s drawings, are also on show. Year 10 student Eleni says that in this unit of work, the girls had to look at elements in nature where flight was naturally occurring. “In this way, we were able to draw from various sources of inspiration to design our flying machines,” she says. The sculptures were made from materials including wire, string, papier mâché and even spare nail bolts. “It was an incredibly intricate process to construct and then balance our flying machines on the stands.”
On the second floor of the gallery sit the Year 11 charcoal, pencil and oil portraits. Earlier in the year, Annelise was awarded the Northbridge Art Prize for her portrait of her grandfather created in class. The girls learned how to work with each of the three medium. "We were given a black and white headshot of an actor to create a large charcoal portrait," Lucy of Year 11 explains. "I was given Anthony Hopkins, which was definitely a stroke of luck, as his dark gaze and features were really fun and interesting to recreate.” After gridding the work and sketching an outline, Lucy spent the next few weeks drawing. She believes it was a great introduction to the Major Work process.