HSC VISUAL ARTS - ACHIEVEMENT
Congratulations to Toby Harland and Lauren Marsh who finished 1st and 2nd in the State respectively in Visual Arts. They both scored 100% as their HSC Mark. This is an outstanding achievement and the first for any school in South West Sydney. They were at the forefront of the best course result in the school’s history in the highest number of Band 6 results (13) that were achieved in the 2021 HSC. These included:
Anthony Ceroni (98%)
Jayde Perenara (97%)
Lachlan Hanney (96%)
Patrick Picot (96%)
Sam Prakhounheung (96%)
Caitlin LaRue (96%)
Joseph Prestia (95%)
Nadia Keopaseuth (94%)
Olivia Torres (92%)
Sulav Bhattarai (92%)
Thomas Regan (90%)
Furthermore Toby’s Visual Arts body of work (“Anti-Mattering.”) was nominated for the annual NESA Showcase event ARTEXPRESS.
ARTEXPRESS is an annual exhibition of artworks that represents the highest standards and diversity achieved by Year 12 Visual Arts students in New South Wales schools. All works demonstrate outstanding exceptional quality across a broad range of subject matter, approaches, styles and media including painting, photography, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, documented forms, textiles and fibre, ceramics, digital animation, film and video, and collections of works.
This tradition of excellence from the John Therry Catholic College Visual Arts faculty in the last eleven years has resulted in having twenty four (24) ARTEXPRESS nominations, the best in the region and Wollongong Diocese, and an outstanding achievement within the State. These nominations over the years came from different expressive forms: Photomedia: (13), Drawing (7), Collection of Works (3) and Designed Objects (1).
Mr. Stephen Peters
Creative Arts Coordinator
TOBY HARLAND ARTEXPRESS STATEMENT
Title; ‘Anti-Mattering; Anomalous insignificance”
Anti-mattering can be defined as feeling insignificant and invisible to others and feeling as though no one cares about what you have to say or think. Those who strongly endorse feelings of anti-mattering may feel as though they do not matter at all to anyone. It stands to reason that those who feel as though they do not matter to anyone would be more likely to be dissatisfied with their social relationships and to feel lonely.
The intention of my body of work is to highlight the elderly from a different perspective, challenging the traditional interaction between artwork and audience. Using the technique of anamorphic filters, reflections and vitrines, my body of work aims to challenge the audience bringing forth connections between the disparate portraits. These evocative black and white images are placed in vitrines. The vitrines deliberately showcase the traditional purpose of emulating a collection of archaeological relics or scientific samples that showcase valuable items in a museum setting. Each distorted photographic print metaphorically portray the ailment of deteriorating age, with only the right anomalous reflective perspective proving to be clear in reducing insignificance, hence the title. These vitrines follow the theme of the human experience, and can be seen as an anthology of my personal experience with my grandparents. Concepts occurred to me when I was growing up, acknowledging that my grandparents were slowly becoming frail over time, increasing in anonymity. Thus, the conceptual intent of the work is confirmed through a consistent aesthetic of each vitrine, with the small yet significant frame of human existence consequently being permeated throughout my work.