This submission demonstrates a highly focused and process-driven approach to developing a pictorial vocabulary through a series of formal explorations and studies. Initial studies establish visual interest and composition, while subsequent works utilize various artistic references and strategies to shift the work forward in a purposeful manner. There is a constructive tension between decoration and abstraction that becomes more complex throughout the progression. The candidate employs considerable painting skills and understanding of conventions to simultaneously create flat pictorial spaces and those with spatial depth.

1. Scholarship – 2008
Painting
Examples of Candidate Work
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2. Scholarship
This submission engages in a restrained and purposeful manner throughout its
entirety. The candidate has employed consistent strategies and devices to develop a
focused and specific premise via a series of formal explorations. Initial studies set up
the visual interest; composition, motif, space and properties such as horizontal/
vertical, pattern/ flatness. Articulation of architectural/ pictorial space and motif is a
significant component of this study. The overall approach is process-driven, utilising a
drawing-based method. The milking shed, as the initial subject matter is quickly
unpicked; and discoveries made inform the selection of artistic reference. The
candidate has utilised various models to inform their own practice, whilst keeping it
original to self. In the workbook the candidate describes explicitly models used and
demonstrates lateral extraction of the model and deployment into own decision
making. Careful and considered introduction of artistic reference helps to move the
work forward at pivotal points. There are strong strategies employed to construct
useful frameworks for developing composition, further ideas and the forming of a
pictorial vocabulary, ie attaching fairly dominant elements to the frame, analysing
how they affect the depth/ space, shifting the emphasis from the edge of the picture
back into a layered pictorial space. The introduction of the veil unlocks further visual
possibilities and expands the conceptual field. This purposeful tactic is just one of
many that demonstrates the candidate’s ability to pick upon visual aspects and devices
to shift the work forward. There is a constructive tension between decoration and
abstraction that becomes more complex as the work progresses – the painting process
helps build imagery, eg flattening of space – creating the candidate’s own vocabulary,
supported inherently by considerable understanding of painting conventions, ie.
everything is in action simultaneously, flat pictorial vs. spatial depth. The return to
figuration usefully concludes the investigation. 2

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9. Outstanding Scholarship
This submission is highly astute, in that it knows what it is about, it lays out a strong
proposition immediately on board one and continues to isolate and draw on a number
of intelligent and interesting solutions throughout. It is fluent, independent and
sophisticated in its disposition. The candidate is completely engaged at all times;
testing, trialing, making decisions, editing their own practice. There is a high level of
drawing facility employed; ideas are explored, analysed and problem solved through
the establishment of a drawn language. The portfolio doesn’t labour at any point;
successful and creative artworks are produced and are then built on. The candidate
utilises established practices of illustration and painting related to pictorial structure/
space, sequencing (time), format of finished work, technique, conventions of fantasy
and New Surrealism. These references are intrinsic to the works and are clearly
understood by the candidate. There is clear understanding of how to manipulate the
illustration factor, through inside/ outside frames, pop-ups, etc. The works move
intelligently between illustration and the structure of the paint. When the candidate
moves out of the frame, they do so meaningfully. Subject matter is constructed by
the candidate, involving both a photo shoot where they directed their own subject
and further innovation through drawing. Narrative is used to drive formal decisions
and to inform the pictorial enquiry, for example, a woman as a character in a world,
of trees and animals, and a filmic set of relationships that are subject to influences
that occur in the world. This allows an interpretative quality to come through, akin to
storytelling through the repetition of a central character, emphasising the sequential
aspect. The workbook enriches the study. Drawing solves its pictorial problems/ it
plans for/ and engages in other possibilities. Drawing is used as a process of
invention and discovery and the paintings are a synthesis of this process (drawing is
used at times as a kind of doodle implicating ideas of memory and fantasy). There is
a real engagement in the act of drawing, the candidate is actively processing – all of
which is evidenced strongly in the workbook. There is a strong sense that the
workbook is simultaneous, that the workbook and portfolio have a symbiotic
relationship, that one is problem solving the other. 9

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