Level 3 exemplars

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NCEA Level 3 - Visual Arts 2013
Examples of Candidate Work – 91456 Painting

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Excellence

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Excellence
As with many folios where abstract painting is undertaken, this one begins with a
phase of works devoted to gathering subject matter derived from observations of
objects or scenes. The folio uses a traditional Modernist method of drawing
subject matter from architectural photographs and then reducing information to
linear geometric compositions. Manipulations of colour and tone are used to
experiment with figure and ground relationships. Panel 2 shows increasing focus
on shifting use of media; using opaque paint with hints of impasto. Varying and
increasing weights of line become shapes and forms within the works. Ten phases
of working systematically develop the pictorial vocabulary. These phases show
how the ideas are rephrased and built upon. Final, larger works show refined
emphasis on materiality and interplay of surface within the compositions.
Like many other good submissions in 2013 and in previous years, the simple
painterly vocabulary of this folio is well understood by the candidate. Although
restrained, the candidate is able to develop a substantial range of options through
Panel 1 which are analysed and prioritised in panel 2.

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Excellence
Strong narrative drives the work in this folio. The work expresses the candidate’s
response to ecological issues in relation to endangered animals. Such folios are
often troubled by too literal a sense of storytelling. It can become difficult for the
candidate to think clearly about developing a pictorial idea because they are too
busy trying to tell the story. This is not the case with this folio. Here individual
works make politicised jokes referring to the plight of selected animals at the
hands of human culture. The basic elements of the vocabulary that link each work
to another are tested and refined while still keeping the visual puns coming. There
is a poignancy to the work. There is a wit to it as well which comes from the
‘sculptural’ assembling and rendering. The project develops well as the montaging
of flat and illusory elements are investigated as the assemblage continues. The
large work on panel 3 deftly combines imagery from earlier works to form the
scientific cross-section work as a grand finale. This is nicely done. (A minor
point: the suite of drawings at the top of panel 1 are redundant since it is clear
throughout that the candidate has an interest in particular subject matter and can
render the illusion of objects.)

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Merit

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Merit
This folio is one that could cause markers to sigh and say, “It just takes too long to
get there”. The suite of generative works on panel 1 successfully provides the
candidate with ideas for media treatment, style and spatial dynamics. Within the
constraints and possibilities of the folio format, time (or space) is of the essence.
The more investigative work on panel 2 suggests a struggle to get to grips with
these spatial dynamics and the scale within the pictures. First the figures are too
close, then too far away, then the work gets too flat and graphic. Things start to
come right at the bottom of panel 2 as the overlay of translucent elements start to
work together. The last two works on panel 3 are very good. The horizontal
format of stretched and morphed space allows the candidate to integrate the
pictures. The figures define the scale of the space and activate the graphic and 3-d
elements into a kind of mindscape. Continued reinvestigation and refinement of
these latter works, and the removal of less successful works in panel 2 might have
netted a better result. It is difficult to tell if this lapse was caused by lack of time
before the submission deadline, or lack of ability to detect the lapse as the project
developed.

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Merit
This project shows the candidate’s clarity of purpose - a simple idea drawn from
images of birds on power lines where the linear and spatial qualities of this imagery
are translated into a painterly vocabulary. Also evident is a decisive method of
developing the pictorial idea. Each phase of working proceeds systematically from the
previous one. The candidate demonstrates some ability to analyse and clarify the
options and to develop alternatives, such as the introduction of the blue (sky)
horizontal forms on panel 3 which deepen and activate the spatial depth of the
paintings.
A possible struggle lies with the candidate’s apparent lack of experience in linear mark
making and their handling of translucent colour sufficient to develop and control
fluent interplays of the formal elements in the work. In some works the transitions
across the pictures and of figure and ground are awkward. Those in panel 3 improve as
the surface is treated to more paint and the pictures become more saturated.

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Achieved

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Achieved
Painting folios that use a number of photographic images have troubled markers over
recent years. This is possibly due to the possible use of photography to mask or
compensate for students’ lack of ability to draw and paint realistically. In some
instances, candidates make no attempt to mask such a lack. Rather they use
photographic imagery as such to produce inference of realist space and forms. In this
particular folio, there is no attempt at disguise and the candidate makes simple visual
puns through a collage of photos and graphic greys and black and white.
The work is sufficiently systematic and generative but it is limited in the extent to
which ideas are analysed and developed. There is one option of playing with scale -
the big hand plucks or stretches the beasts, another where the beasts slip through
graduated stripes, and still another where beasts and people are in a jumbled wrestle.
The use of the photos and simple grey painting is natty, but it is a lapse that the
candidate did not include painted beasts and humans or collage photographic greys to
extend and deepen the play. It cannot be seen if the candidate is unable to handle such
an integration of media to advance the idea, or if they simply failed to recognise the
need for it. The folio does not present sufficient evidence of analysis and evaluation,
nor of an understanding of established methods in painting to get it beyond an
achievement grade.

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Achieved
This folio reveals a candidate working hard to develop a visual vocabulary to
represent what seems a complex theme around human and animal interdependence.
Throughout panels and 1 and 2, there is a mingling of generative works and
images that record subject matter and experiment with style and media treatments.
There is possibly too much space in the folio given to such works, and as the
pictorial idea gains clarity at the bottom of panel 2, there is insufficient space give
to works that develop, test and refine this idea. Again, the candidate appears to
have a lack of experience in drawing/rendering figures. This lack makes it difficult
for the candidate to develop ideas they may have in language into visual forms.
The latter works in the folio begin to integrate montaged elements and here some
of the candidate’s purpose and ability to combine shifting scale and spaces
emerges. Here too, a sense of the systematic emerges, and some of the thematic
content becomes retrievable.

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