Artexpress – a great result

Teachers in the art faculty at Wyndham College aren’t normally a superstitious lot, but when the number seven came up they knew it was their lucky day.

Out of 9,283 students who submitted artworks as part of the 2007 HSC visual arts examination, seven students from Wyndham College, in Sydney’s west, were selected for Artexpress 2008, making it the school with the highest number of students chosen to exhibit for the prestigious event.

Art teacher Prue Hornidge said her initial response to the news was of shock and delight. “It took a while for me to digest it. ‘Is that seven?’’’ she had questioned.

Lesley Brown, Artexpress coordinator, said works from 279 students from NSW public and private schools were chosen for exhibition. The works – spanning all media from painting and ceramics to digital animation – will be shown in metropolitan and regional gallery spaces from February to October.

Ms Brown said the standard of work from students was continually improving “to a point where you think they can’t get better”.

“This year the students who are exhibiting have excelled in terms of the extraordinary responses they’ve sent in for their visual arts bodies of work. What’s particularly significant is the way students are handling new media and film and animation,” she said.

She said the Wyndham College students were particularly outstanding because of their “excellent” skills in photography.

“Of the seven students who were selected, the majority of them have made photographic works. Those works were considered so highly by the selectors that they wanted them for their shows,” Ms Brown said.

Ms Hornidge said there was no mystery to the students’ success – good old-fashioned teamwork from teachers in the arts faculty.

“One of the things that is really important is basically we have a team – Phillipa Spring, Gary Poulton, Ron Pratt, Jenny Linkletter and myself,” Ms Hornidge said.

“It’s not about ownership of a student, it’s about who can enrich the practice of that student. It’s seen as unified, we share them.” Ms Hornidge said the art teachers saw their role as facilitators of the students’ ideas.

“Because we’ve got a united home front we’re just supporting [the students] in all of the processes, whether I’m getting quotes for an enlargement for them or Ron Pratt is talking to a framer. It’s really important in a faculty to share strengths.”