Arts
“Art is an ongoing process in which the human spirit is set free; at the same time art teaches us how to act out of love.”
In the High School, the visual arts program unfolds the imagination through gesture, form, colour, feeling and tone. The world of inspiration permeates the curriculum and creates in students a confidence and capacity for astute observation. This process to enable students to encounter their inner reality and intuitive knowing through making, viewing and exploring the world of visual arts.
Drawing and painting topics span each year level, either as weekly subjects or as part of History of Art units. Students study masterful artists as well as tuning into their own creative inspiration so by Class 12, there is confidence to draw a large-scale self-portrait and paint a resolved self-directed painting. In Class 12, students visit galleries, studios, practicing artists as part of a week long art camp for their History of Modern and Contemporary Art studies.
Three History of Art units are spread across the high school years with the art and culture of Aboriginal Peoples integrated throughout. In Class 9 the History of Art unit is integrated with the Health and Social Education Program and a camp to the Northern Flinders Ranges where art, culture, language become central to the learning. In Class 10 students plan, create and install an exhibition of their artwork from their History of Art studies.
In clay modelling in Class 8-10, students create sculptures of hands, torsos, heads and pots, culminating in large limestone sculpture in Class 11.
In Class 9 and 11, darkroom and digital photography enable students to make images with light, and printmaking topics correspond to explore technical processes to reproduce images.
Bookbinding in Class 11 helps students develop method and precision through designing, cutting and assembling a bound book.
Art electives are offered for junior and senior high school students to give more time to students to develop their personal aesthetic, individual art projects and folios in areas of specialised interest.
The emphasis on the integration of arts and creativity across the curriculum, supported by skill development and therapeutic approaches to art result in creative thinking, a capacity for self-expression, flexibility and adaptability in the face of complexity.
In Class 11, for example, students read the medieval epic Parzival and interpret the story through artistic means. Students analyse and appreciate the novel and understand its deeper meaning in their own way. In Class 12 Palaeoanthropology, students make a clay skull of human ancestors along with rigorous academic reading.
Students value the balance that art classes bring to their rigorous academic schedule. They explore many disciplines, develop a strong aesthetic sense, and learn to work with their hands. These classes give students time to delve into the arts as subjects in their own right.
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