Visual Arts - external exemplars Level 3 2018 - Painting
Show: External Exemplars
The resources below contain examples of candidate work submitted in 2018 for assessment for the Visual Arts Achievement Standard 91456 Produce a systematic body of work that integrates conventions and regenerates ideas within painting practice. The purpose of this resource is to assist art teachers prepare their teaching programmes and their students for assessment.
Excellence
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| Panel 1 (JPG, 687KB) | Panel 2 (JPG, 572KB) | Panel 3 (JPG, 574KB) |
| Entire Folio (JPG, 1.8MB) | ||
This Excellence folio is included to present an example of a candidate’s sustained and in-depth investigation within the domain of abstraction. In 2018, there was a pleasing increase in boards engaging with a wide range of abstract propositions from the geometric to the more expressive painterly examples, of which this is one.
It is often a characteristic of boards at this level that the entry level on board one suggests there has been a careful editing and selecting process prior to this. This allows the folio to hit the ground running with immediately resolved abstract biological-type works. This seems a more genuine approach to abstraction than a realism-to-abstraction journey across three boards.
Throughout this board, we see clear passages of exploration, which allow the candidate to push their proposition forward, through looking at a wide range of artistic practice. This is evident in the small-scale, ongoing developmental works that illustrate the decision-making in this refinement of ideas. We can identify precedents in artists such as Terry Winters in using biological forms as subject matter, but when such an influence is combined with more colourful protagonists, such as Albert Oehlen or Amy Sillman, or a Saskia Leek colour palette, the resulting extension into new work is at a higher level.
Across each board, these passages address the use of different shapes and forms, the use of line or colour to define space, pattern, mark making and intersecting forms of shapes within shapes. Specifically, board two clearly addresses the use of a brighter colour palette and the focus on the placement of the various motifs and symbols within the compositions / figure ground relationships. We can identify in the top passage on the last board a return to more expressive mark making, scraping and smudging in the manner of more expressive abstraction examples, with the softening of the palette and further subtle colour shifts across the board. The complexity in the depth of space is built upon through these continued shifts in colour and mark making, resulting in intelligent and spatially more complex works that have come from a successful and genuine investigation of abstraction.
Merit
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| Panel 1 (JPG, 345KB) | Panel 2 (JPG, 336KB) | Panel 3 (JPG, 336KB) |
| Entire Folio (JPG, 983KB) | ||
Within the field of painting in recent years, there has been a sustained growth in the number of folios produced in the classroom around digital painting processes. It is useful to use an opportunity such as this Merit board to provide guidance in aspects that could improve the performance of candidates when working with such digital painting processes and techniques.
This board has a very traditional painting aesthetic, due to its purposeful exploration of surface texture transparency and the brush-like characteristics that relate to the sea and land in combination with New Zealand iconography. This shared relationship and mood through paint and digital presents a successful synergy. Across the boards, one notes a fluent use of the digital procedures and methods. If candidates felt it useful, they could label works with the programmes used, in the same way larger paintings on a traditional board would include media and dimensions.
This candidate has been cognisant of the relationship between a digital approach and more traditional painting conventions. Their ability to explore and push formats in terms of tondo format or the last Barbara Tuck-type organic format was encouraging. An earlier critique of possible shapes of works or compositions in relation to the narrative could have provided a greater depth of ideas to explore, allowing more evidence of critical decision-making to be assessed on the board and, therefore, improving their result. This also applies to the iconography used within works. At times, new imagery — text, tukutuku, motifs and waka imagery — is introduced, but not necessarily extended. Scale and compositional changes could ensure more refinement and extension.
So, when engaging with digital painting processes, allow for a depth of exploration. Developmental work can be small-scale. If the work is more narrative-based, allow more time for character development or setting development; where possible, use smaller series to allow more refinement options to be looked at and identify a range of options. Then, reflect critically on all pictorial concerns, so that the language of painting is being explored through the techniques and processes of digital painting.