Excelling in Creativity

The annual Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s (VCAA) VCE Season of Excellence showcases a sample of outstanding students, comprising of Top Class, Top Acts, Top Designs, Top Arts, Top Talks and Top Screen, presented from February to June. Several students from the Class of 2022 have been shortlisted for the 2023 Season of Excellence, taking them through to the next round of assessment. We congratulate these students for this recognition by the VCAA and we look forward to the VCE Season of Excellence in 2023.

Top Designs

Sasha Joe | ‘Videre’

‘Videre’ is a combination of communication and environmental design for an exhibition about the history and relationship between technology and sight. For the environmental need, Sasha designed the layout and interior structure of the exhibition space, creating a presentation of plans, elevations and a 3-dimensional model. For the communication need, she designed a poster and series of banners to promote the exhibition.

Ms Amy Deveraux, VCE Visual Communications teacher reflected, “Sasha is a focused and driven student, whose talent for design has been evident throughout her years of schooling. Her ability to weave her own interests around human vision and science with her passion for design resulted in a folio that was genuinely engaging, thoughtful, and meaningful. Her success in Visual Communication Design is a testament to her drive, creativity and trust in the design process.”

Top Arts

Lilith Pett | ‘Internal Discord’ | Oil and aerosol on canvas

The idea that relationships must consist of a man and a woman is engrained within people from a young age. Storybooks, songs and television shows, depict relations as men and women. Coming to terms with your sexuality can prove to be an arduous task. The use of warm, ‘feminine’ colours distinctly contrasted with dense black lines convey the socially constructed distinctions society has pushed upon people. The grid like structure and jagged shapes of the aerosol lines represent a beautiful identity hidden behind a cage constructed from societal expectations.

Alexandra Pye | ‘The Pulse’ | Watercolour, graphite pencil on paper

Alex explored the ecosystems as bound in a living, breathing web of symbiotic relations that form a balance as small changes to the ecosystem may result in a ripple effect with grievous consequences. Unity in diversity is displayed through a surrealist landscape of forms that emanate different aspects of nature.  A resin filled wood cavity imitates the deep earthen form of an inland lake, and intricate roots, which bare a resemblance to an aerial perspective of a river delta, as the water splits into small tongues of water. Thus, the earth breathes and beats.

Stephanie Smith | ‘Total Control’ | Oil Painting

Stephanie explored the concept of Control in Studio Arts this year. This painting is a visual representation of Stephanie’s personal desire to be in control of her surroundings. Struggles with perfectionism and the desire to control experiences and surroundings are explored through the geometric and structured arrangement of shapes and lines.

Nicole Zhao | ‘The Life of Things’ | Monoprints

In this series of four monoprints Nicole has presented an autobiographical mapping of her lived experiences; a developmental, chronological, and visual cartographic narrative that reflects the trials and tribulations of life endured. This concept is reflected through abstract subject matter, detailed linear marks depicting boundaries, pathways, undulating meridians and horizon lines, illustrating our life paths in a metaphorical manner. Each line or mark represents an event, connection, or emotion, coming together in a crisp, sharp, clearly articulated pattern of marks, creating an abstracted visual cartographic narrative of her own lived experiences.

Nicole Zhao | 'You, Me, Us, Breath, Touch' | Etching ink, shellac and tissue on foam board

The world and the self, inform and redefine each other constantly, and lifepaths inevitably cross each other’s threshold. In this artwork Nicole explored recognising the interrelationship of events, people, and place, and how these are interwoven throughout one’s passage of life. Fragments, nuances, expressions, gestures, insights, and understandings rub off from one onto the other, becoming contours within contours, almost like the outward ripples of a stone dropped in water. Masses of figures embedded in the work are ubiquitous, yet remain removed. Displaced spaces between drawn, printed and constructed elements also suggest fragmented relationships, speaking to the idea of the interrelationship of events, people and place.

Top Class

For this task, students focus on the interpretation of a monologue from a scene contained within a script selected from a list provided by VCAA. Students make decisions about how the contexts, theatrical possibilities, elements of theatre composition and theatre styles will inform their interpretation of the monologue. They consider the interrelationships between acting, direction and design.

Eleanor Suttie

Eleanor worked as an actor and director to present her interpretation of the character ‘Man’ from the play Man Covets Bird by playwright, Finegan Kruckemeyer.

Tegan Gheri

Tegan worked as an Actor and Director to present her interpretation of the monologue from the play Switzerland by playwright, Joanna Murray-Smith. She played the character, Patricia Highsmith.