Head start

The display gathered together outstanding works by high school students from across NSW, developed for the art-making component of the Higher School Certificate in visual arts. Now, 40 years on, the annual exhibition showcases the diversity of students’ artmaking achievements from across the state and continues to grow in popularity with visitors.

Although the concerns and interests of exhibiting student artists have remained fairly consistent – exploring social and political views of the world, personal identity, family, friends and the environment – their artmaking approaches and unique voices have made each exhibition distinctive. Each year, visitors of all ages can gain a glimpse of the world through these young artists’ eyes.

To celebrate 40 years of exceptional student work on the Art Gallery’s walls, four practising artists talk about their start in ARTEXPRESS. They recall their HSC ‘bodies of work’, what it was like to exhibit, and how the exhibition has shaped their careers to date.

Julie Fragar, 1994

I was interested then (as now) in making work about people around me. Since I lived in the country town of Wee Waa in North West NSW, I was around a lot of Australian ‘cowboys’. They all wore a uniform of tight (usually RM Williams) jeans, boots and big hats, and took their style quite seriously. I made two seven- or eight-foot sculptures of these character types, based on nobody in particular but looking like many of them combined. They ended up standing on either side of the entrance to the exhibition and looking pretty wild in that context. Being in ARTEXPRESS was the best kind of encouragement an art student from the regions could get. I always wanted to be an artist but seeing my work in the Art Gallery made me think it might be possible. It wasn’t just the exhibition; the publicity, opportunities to talk about our work and the respect shown to us by staff made us feel like we were as capable as anyone of giving an art career a go. After that experience I felt able to apply with (some) confidence to the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, which was really the foundation of my career.

Tom Polo, 2003

High school was the place where ideas of ‘self-expression’ came alive – and luckily, as an art student, I had the perfect place to funnel all those questions about life and the world around me. This resulted in a lot of material exploration but in the end, I returned to my first love of drawing and painting. For my major work, I submitted a three-panel figurative painting called Unstuck/stuck, which, looking back, might’ve been the starting point for my creative practice today. My work was shown in the windows of David Jones in Pitt Street Mall, so I was excited at the time about all the people that would get to see the work whilst on their daily commute. Being in ARTEXPRESS was one of the steps that led me to recognising a future through art was possible. Getting to meet the other exhibitors and having a deeper introduction to the Art Gallery was a great, formative experience that connected me to a community that I have loved being a part of.   

Louise Zhang, 2009

At school I had the luxury of doing all sorts of creative electives such as visual arts and textiles. My major work ended up being a puzzle piece inspired by the idea of a never-ending drawing. A large piece of paper that you could continually fold and unfold. Each edge it met turned it into another drawing. I liked the idea of creating a ‘nonsense’ visual language through the puzzle and paired it with a pair of gloves. To be exhibited at the Art Gallery at age 17, fresh out of school, made me feel like I could achieve my dreams. I wasn’t encouraged to pursue art as a career, so to have the opportunity to show at an institute that housed masters and artists we studied was a great encouragement. Being exhibited in ARTEXPRESS and seeing my work displayed in the exhibition felt like a huge validation that someone like me could most definitely give it a shot. It gave me a confidence I hadn’t had before. A couple of years later, here I am now, a full-time artist and I wouldn’t change a thing.  

Jasper Knight, 1996

As a student I loved looking at the work of Jeffrey Smart: his bright colours, perspective and view of the landscape – aspects of the built environment from the Cahill Expressway to Italian freeways. I also loved studying the strong colour and bold graphic line work of Leger and of course the pop artists. The work I submitted was called The trees of Windy Hill. It was a landscape of trees painted in acrylic, 182 x 91cm, at my grandparents’ house on Berry Mountain with long stretching shadows coming towards the viewer across the grass in the foreground. I was so proud to be part of ARTEXPRESS. It was amazing to see my work in the Art Gallery, to be able to show my family (especially my grandparents whose property the painting was of), and I was thrilled that the Minister for Education John Aquilina used my image on his Christmas card that year. The premier’s office (the Hon Bob Carr) went on to buy my work from the show. Many years later I contacted the office and they still had the painting on their walls. I ended up painting Bob Carr after that visit and it was an Archibald finalist in 2007, 11 years after ARTEXPRESS.

ARTEXPRESS 2023 is at the Art Gallery from 2 February to 7 May 2023.

A version of this article first appeared in Look – the Gallery’s members magazine