Subtle Relationships: A Scholarly Exploration of Painting

1. Scholarship – 2013:Painting (93306) Examples of Candidate Work

2. Outstanding Scholarship This Outstanding Scholarship Painting submission presents a highly sophisticated and subtle enquiry. The handling of both paint and print media merge to create simply rendered imagery that draws the viewer into a complex relationship with each individual image. There is an overall sense of control exhibited throughout the entire investigation; the candidate operates with authority in their choice of subject, composition, viewpoint, spatial dynamic and scale. The candidate sustains a focused enquiry that intelligently works with a narrative construct, which successfully shifts from 'object' to 'subject' (voyeur to author). The subject is complex. Topics about self-subject-object are commonly explored in Painting, but this is an exemplary performance both theoretically and practically. The use of series works well to set up the initial proposition. Various scenarios slowly reveal more of the figure and challenge the viewer to assess and reassess their position as voyeur (peering into the composition) through clever use of cropping, lighting, surface pattern, line and block, positive and negative space. Success is built upon by exceptional use of imagery/ pattern alongside painting and print processes that produces content and concepts related to the candidate’s own bicultural identity and the broader scope of the enquiry (subject/object/viewer relations). The submission evidences highly skilled technique in realist painting combined with flattened and graphic pictorial space. Time spent with this submission reveals more information, more strategy and a more intimate encounter with the work. This is tempered by very skilled use of a modified colour palette alongside highly considered decision making of how to represent surface, ground and form. Print and paint techniques operate equivalently, ie. there is no hierarchy in approach and method, one is not the ground for the other - they are interchangeable. The candidate controls and strategically manages the relationships between modeled/rendered forms, pattern/decoration, graphic/planar forms. Rendered areas affect the construction of meaning and at times suggest varying degrees of sensuality. The technique also draws the viewer in, so that you notice detail and appreciate subtleties.  The final diptych is an arresting image and has authority in its compositional stance. The topic and the execution of this submission is highly developed for this level and is achieved with maturity and inventiveness, demonstrating a strong sense of ownership.

15. Scholarship This Scholarship Painting submission presented a well-edited and purposeful enquiry. The candidate selected a simple subject about the relationship between humans and water and how it is used for everyday function and the impact of this relationship, which was then inventively utilised to activate a painting study. Sophisticated painting technique is used to create illusion and to realise a series of propositions that explore this idea. Artistic reference is made to architecture and landscape traditions, interior space, surrealism, constructed space, and formalism as well as deterioration and decay. Compositionally there is a strong understanding of spatial awareness, which is both informative and convincing in establishing the candidate’s ideas. Both the works on the folio and documentation in the workbook create questions; the candidate is reflective about the theme and its relationship to the pictorial enquiry, eg. architectural structures become vast landscapes and vice versa. There is strong synthesis between geometric imagery and landscape imagery. This is in part achieved through painting technique and the colour palette, soft grounds and translucent layering, silhouette and floating forms. Composition is key in revealing context within each image, whether the proposition at hand is a constructed image, model-like in structure or a detailed view. The attention to detail and painting surfaces throughout enhances the enquiry, eg. the rust and stains enrich and expand the dialogue and establish links to the land and the potential effects of time. The workbook expands upon technique, compositional ideas and painting processes. The candidate speaks of observations that impact directly on the work, ie. water’s impact on surface conceptually translates into the mediums impact on surface. This shows insightful understanding of painterly properties and conventions related to the topic, and demonstrates that the candidate understands context. They link themes with relevant artist models and techniques to form a coherent and concept-led investigation.  Each work advances the proposition and is matched by equal attention to technique and composition to communicate ideas. This is an accomplished and articulate visual enquiry.