MENTAL health, identity and concepts of time and space are explored in art featuring in this year’s Pulse Perspectives exhibition.
The Art Gallery of WA’s annual display of visual art from Year 12 graduates will feature 44 works by students who attended 29 schools across WA, including Joseph Banks Secondary College, Lake Joondalup Baptist College and St Mark’s Anglican Community School.
Selected from 300 submissions, the chosen works span a variety of subject matter and media, ranging from painting and drawing to sculpture, digital moving image, photography and textiles.
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READ NOWThe exhibition, renamed Pulse Perspectives in 2019, will run from March 7 to June 29.
“Pulse is a platform for young people to engage, provoke, consult, mentor and contribute to AGWA in real and valued ways,” learning and creative research manager Lilly Blue said.
“The exhibition of Year 12 works of art in Pulse Perspectives, provides a genuine opportunity for challenging, honest, enthusiastic and hopeful young voices to reflect the stories and concerns of our world.”
One of the works on display is three digital prints on paper called When did you decide by Jasmine Dowding from Joseph Banks Secondary College.
The Banksia Grove resident said the three posters were inspired by the artist Shepard Fairey and his ‘We the people’ series of posters.
“My work is about rude questions LGBTQI+ people are often asked and have to experience daily,” she said.
“The figures depicted have an unimpressed expression as if they have received these kinds of questions over and over again.
“Questions such as ‘Are you sure?’, ‘When did you decide?’ and ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’.
“I created my work digitally, taking photos of people and drawing them using Sketchbook Pro.”
Ryan Fox from Lake Joondalup Baptist College created HU//MN project from acrylic Perspex, paper collage, oil paint, gold leaf and chain.
“Each of my Dada-inspired dolls represents aspects of myself I would like to improve or change: my athletic ability, my ability to understand others, my levels of compassion for others and myself and my general struggle to achieve these qualities,” the Clarkson resident said.
“The suspended dolls are like thoughts in my head interacting with each other.”
Monique Furlan from St Mark’s Anglican Community School used poly clay, wood, acrylic mirror, iPad and digital image to create her two-part piece Exit.
“The idea for my work was to creatively and powerfully represent the feelings and struggles associated with mental health and how it affects me,” the Hillarys resident said.
“A coping strategy of mine has been the creation of many digitally painted personas of myself, through a fox called August.
“The exit sign represents a freedom of sorts – August takes a leap of faith to break the cycle of darkness inside the room.
“This is my expression of hope for myself and possibly for others.”
Abigail Hunt from Lake Joondalup Baptist College referenced the Austrian artist Friedrich Hundertwasser for her three-part oil painting on silk screens, The straight line is godless.
“My work is about the search for beauty in the imperfection of the sterile, mundane, northern suburbs world where everything is perfect, new and commercialised,” the Currambine resident said.
“My paintings are of ordinary, chaotic places which are far from perfect, yet can still be strangely beautiful and precious.
“The old silk screens which I have painted have a beauty of their own as they allow light to flow through them and manipulate the scene in a unique way.”
Imogen Robertson, of Kingsley, used wood, hand-cut paper, Perspex and single channel video to create a two-part piece, The encapsulated time.
“This work is my box of time, a microcosm in the universe which I can manipulate, a glimpse of power in an uncontrollable world,” the Applecross Senior High School graduate said.
“The video creates a nebulous line between construction, resolved piece, and its deconstruction.
“It aims to shift the point of view, bringing raw elements of art making back into focus.
“The expressive ritualistic nature of lines and pure enjoyment of the performance celebrates the release of emotion.
“Human connections are made and lost in the final work.”
Up up and away! by Catherine Shepherd from St Mary’s Anglican Girls School is a four-part, wearable piece made with textiles, cane, balloon, wire, mannequin, car bumpers, spray paint, metal, plastic and plant fibre.
The Landsdale resident referenced a quote by Brazilian aviation inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont, “the balloon seems to stand still in the air while the earth flies past underneath”, as a summary of her intent to depict interesting landscapes from changing perspectives.
“Weaving raw silk of different colours of the landscape is reflective of the balloon’s basket,” she said.
“Old car bumpers were repurposed into part of the shoulder piece.
“The headpiece is constructed of crazy stitched felt and pages from Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days.”
Clara Wust from St Mark’s Anglican Community School created Mis raices (my roots) from clay, glaze and wood.
“I was born in Argentina and when I was five, we moved to Australia,” the Duncraig resident said.
“Coping with the new country, language and the coarse Aussie slang was difficult and contrasted with my beautiful native Spanish language.
“The overlapping words on my neck symbolise the words caught in my throat as a new migrant.
“My Argentinean roots seep from my mind, while our national flower, the red ceibo adorns my face.
“One petal falls — as they all eventually must — as I take on my new language, culture and life.”
Visit artgallery.wa.gov.au for more information.