Honours visual arts students exhibit their work

This year’s Southern Cross University Visual Arts Honours Students Graduation Exhibition opens on Friday, November 19 at 6pm in the Visual Arts Block at the Lismore campus and will feature works by six Honours students.

Course co-ordinator for the Bachelor of Visual Arts John Smith described the exhibition as engaging and diverse. He said the Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours program enabled students to take their work to a higher level through research training and the development of their professional gallery installation practice.

“Honours projects typically have a resonant personal, social and cultural currency. They indicate the depth of engagement with the world that can be achieved through contemporary art practice by these emerging artists,” Mr Smith said.

“As an exhibition, the six artists have provided a broad range of aesthetically engaging experiences, intellectually challenging propositions and creative resolutions.”

Kimberley Morgan-Smith will be exhibiting her work, ‘Crossing the Invisible Threshold’. She said that as the opening date approaches she was feeling both vulnerable and excited about the work finally being exhibited.

“This Honours year has given me the opportunity to explore areas of my studio practice that I would not have been able to explore if I wasn't engaged in such an intensive visual arts Honours project,” Kimberley said.

“My project was inspired by the desire to engage in a mixed media practice that responds to children’s experiences of war. The title of my project references the invisible line that is sometimes referred to as 'compassion fatigue' which describes the growing social numbness towards images of trauma present in mass media.

“I would hope that the audience might come away from viewing the installation with new awareness towards the issues portrayed - to have been touched and moved by the work in a way that surpasses the issue of compassion fatigue. It explores what art can do.”

The Visual Arts Honors Students Graduation Exhibition opening will be held from 6pm to 8pm on Friday, November 19 in the Visual Arts ‘V’ Block, Military Road, Lismore campus. The exhibition continues from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, November 20 through to Saturday, November 27 and will be closed on Sunday, November 21. Multi-media viewings will be available between 11am and 3pm each day of the exhibition. For more information about the exhibition contact 02 66203831 or visit scu.edu.au/arts-social-sciences.

Photo: Honours visual arts student, Kimberley Morgan-Smith.