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NCEA Level 3 - Visual Arts 2013

Examples of Candidate Work – 91459 Sculpture

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Excellence

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Excellence

This submission is influenced by a specific range of contemporary figurative sculptural practice. Traditional planar constructions give way to increasingly complex and fluent material investigations. Small maquettes and drawing allows this candidate to work through ideas quickly and efficiently. Referencing artists such as Ryan Johnson and Matthew Monahan allows this candidate to create their own vernacular that keeps on growing throughout the production of work. This is a good demonstration of how a candidate may synthesise ideas and methods to critically inform and refine their own work.

This candidate demonstrates an intuitive sensitivity to materials that grows in complexity as the work develops. Materials and methods are utilised fluently to extend and refine the body of work in a range of directions.

The notion of found object repurposed in figurative arrangements develops ideas about metaphor of materials in the context of figure. For example the judgmental stopwatch eyes or the motorcycle speedometer inquisitive face allows this candidate to produce a poetic and intelligent approach to figurative assemblage.

Traditions surrounding the display of sculpture have influenced this candidate as by the end of the submission we see the candidate articulating museological attitudes to artefact and reverence for these objects through the nature of display.

The submission returns to its initial phase of working by reintegrating the issue of planar representation of bust as a critical reinterpretation of space through drawing on planes that are then twisted to form cones that repurpose the drawing to act as an object.

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Excellence

This candidate employs a rigorous conceptual framework in which to test and refine ideas in the production of Sculpture via a range of modes of practice. Established practice is contextualised by interlinked ideas about surveillance and audience. The early performance and kinetic camera works generate interactive audience elements that are evaluated to inform new work. The candidate critiques and prioritises options within the work to extend ideas strategically. Technically challenging projects have allowed this candidate to produce some confronting and surprising work that questions the sociological issues of surveillance within a secondary school context. The different modes of working allow this candidate to run multiple strategies of aesthetic inquiry firmly based in a central proposition. The work successfully translates ideas into different formats of kinetic or video installation. For example the first clandestine watching performance work references the video projection figure installation on the middle panel. This approach continues to test and refine ideas and methods between and within phases of working.

This is a candidate who may have benefited from submitting work as a digital submission so that the true nature of the kinetic, video and performance work could be assessed.

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Merit

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MeritThis candidate has purposefully developed ideas through the confident use of materials and methods that select and revisit ideas in an informed and purposeful manner. The submission explores the notion of growth that starts with a didactic approach to display in the context of a pseudo-scientific even museological way. As the found botanical samples influence the nature of how the objects are presented the candidate shifts the ideas to encompass material processes which lend themselves to growth through repetition of layers like wax. Informed by the found seed pods assemblage the candidate settles on the repetition of units to replicate growth in object and installation. These items are initially cast to create a uniformity of components that are then arranged to intervene in space. The last works transform consumer refuse material such as aluminium drink cans and Styrofoam cups into organic forms or installation. This candidate continuously shifts through materials that relate formally and conceptually. Some of the final works hold an interesting tension between artificiality of the material and organic inspired forms in space that replicate growth in nature. The submission would have benefited from a more rigorous criticality in the way in which these ideas and methods were selected in order to provide options for the extension of ideas. The persistent almost dogmatic attitude towards developing ideas is this candidate’s strength as much as it is its weakness. This rigid approach to developing ideas has led to a deep and yet narrow investigation. There is a range of established assemblage and installation practice that would have helped this candidate synthesise a range of ideas within the central sculptural proposition.

In order to gain achievement with excellence this candidate would need to apply, in a diverse manner, research of recent and established practice from a range of attitudes to build upon and sustain the central proposition of materiality and growth. They would also need to employ a more critical analytical and evaluative approach to extend ideas in the production of work.

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Merit

This candidate has presented a process driven body of work that deals with the notion of cocoon and wrapping of a linear material to create form. These forms are created by a range of means that increase in scale and complexity. Simple wrapping with wool, string and yarn leads into tape casting and bandaged body forms, which are refined then revisited in notions of body cocoons and finally seed pods or vessels. This reformation of ideas creates a narrative within the work about bodies, containers and the relationship of this notion to insect structures built for metamorphosis. Materials are used proficiently and with great persistence as many of the works require repetitive actions like weaving or plaiting in order to make a form.

Although a range of methods and ideas are investigated in this submission. The understanding of how to build upon particular sculptural ideas is restrained by the candidate’s ability to critically select ideas and methods that integrate conventions from established sculptural practice.

In order for this candidate to achieve with excellence they would have needed to employ a more critical approach to prioritising options to enable the synthesis of a range of ideas and methods in the production of work that is informed by established sculptural practice.

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Achieved

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Achieved

This submission works through a series of related formal explorations based on the notion of positive and negative space or mass and void. Casting of different domestic objects in plaster and wax has allowed this candidate to investigate the relationship of mass to void in a range of ideas within established sculptural practice. These steps negotiate how a void can be represented as its opposite or positive form next to the void itself. This notion of inversion is then utilised to explore the sculptural idea of wrapping to describe form as opposed to casting its interior space. This is a formal study that stays safely within the established practice bringing conventions together to drive the development of ideas in an elementary extension.

 The candidate would have benefited from investigations into a wider range of particular artist models that deal with the casting of negative spaces like Rachel Whiteread and that also deal with the materiality of reproduction processes like Hany Armanious. This would have assisted this candidate in decisions about how to revisit and refine ideas in the production of work.

In order for this candidate to achieve the standard with Merit they would have needed to select, revisit and refine ideas from previous works in order to reform and extend ideas in new work. Further exploration of combinations of ideas with an awareness of links between the phases of working would have helped this candidate achieve with merit.

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Achieved

This submission has investigated a range of pasifika cultural modes of craft and pattern to create a range of objects, installation and performance. Basic narratives are devised and re-formed to extend the sculptural work.

Body adornment and pattern through repetition of shape and form in relation to the body create the basis for this sculptural investigation. Traditional pattern is investigated to create a range of very successful small scale works on the first panel. The candidate then moves on to dealing with notions of love and belonging through narrative used in the traditions of illustration and symbolism of traditional Tapa painting.  

Because the genesis of the sculptural ideas came from the notion of body adornment it is logical to extend this idea into a performative gesture to articulate some of the larger scale works in the context of body. The addition of reoccurring layer of pattern is logically extended into a projection installation that adds to the proposition of narrative though layers of traditional symbol and pattern to convey story.

In order for this candidate to achieve the standard with Merit they would have needed to revisit and refine the ideas generated from the jewellery making and the other body adornment into larger scale works that interact with the body in the same way that the smaller works operated. Analysis of the links within and between the phases of working would have also allowed this candidate to achieve with merit.

This candidate would have benefited from investigating a wider range of contemporary Pasifika art practice to inform appropriate materials and methods to extend ideas in the production of work.

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