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Scholarship – 2009Painting (93306)

Examples of Candidate Work

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Outstanding Scholarship

This submission demonstrates a well-crafted and consistently purposeful inquiry. The candidate has engaged in a thorough exploration of the genre of portraiture, navigating various modes of recording and representation to create a strong connection between selection of imagery and psychological depiction. In the workbook, the candidate clearly outlines their intent, and identifies their interest in relationships, personality and identity as a means to investigate the “psychological insight of people and their morality”.

Early exploratory works operate as finished pieces, not as background research. They set up the tone for the investigation; painted observations of moments of action, isolated simple events and everyday emotive situations. Colour has been used to highlight or intensify emotion. Colour shifts between individual images take subjects out of their photographic origin and reinterpret images into a painterly context. Handling of paint shows considerable control and fluency. The candidate has sensitively used photographic devices within a painting investigation to communicate their ideas, such as scale, facial representation, size of the face to the edge, aspects of distortion, etc. This demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how to match concept to process and application.

A key strategy that successfully operates throughout the portfolio, and particularly on the last board, is the employment of scale as a means to indicate relationships between subjects and also to suggest narratives beyond what is presented. Compositions take on photographic formats with ease, such as the exploration of the snapshot and use of negative frames to remind the viewer of the uncanny nature and everyday casualness of family shots. Established practice, family portraiture tradition and contemporary portrait painting are inherently integrated. The candidate has incorporated what they consider appropriate devices and characteristics of various artistic references. Each new model subtly builds on previous learning to advance the inquiry into new territory.

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Scholarship

This submission is fluent in its treatment of subject matter, visual development and formal qualities, such as use of paint, colour, tonality, detailing and composition. This is a good example of a symbiotic relationship between a pictorial inquiry and the story that is being told. Colour has effectively been used as a signifier for shifting the dialogue. It is pleasing to see colour management being employed to create atmosphere and association to imagined spaces and places. The concentration of paint technique married with colour handling focuses each image within its own narrative and contributes to the overall refinement of the proposition.

In the workbook we are also made aware of a systematic and comprehensive starting point. The candidate has constructed an assemblage with objects to identify chosen symbols to represent their concept of birth and death (rebirth, regeneration, growth and the afterlife). This has then been used as source (still-life) from which to paint. This approach locates their concept in real terms allowing them to draw from something real rather than just from their own thoughts. This strategy is effective in providing strong source and consequently credible imagery.

The work requires the viewer to look closely to find all that exists within each composition. Painted landscapes and environments are deliberately merged with detailed linear paintwork. It is clear that the candidate had an interest in how to construct paintings; i.e. they have established a precise vocabulary and developed the means and ways that these symbols can communicate their ideas. The facility and handling of detail further constructs a complexity of thinking that translates into a thoughtful and imaginative story. The presence of narrative (in the form of symbols) as a central development tool usefully offers new opportunities at each stage and movement into the next phase. There is evidence of thorough visual research and thinking in the workbook. The candidate has actively sought out and explored a number of ideas before settling on the preferred option.

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