In the spotlight
By Mrs Amanda Marshall, Head of Creative Arts
In 2025, the Visual Arts Department continues to extend and inspire students to find their artistic voice. Our team is comprised of highly skilled and passionate educators, Mrs Amanda Marshall, Mr Tim Minehan, Ms Dimity Kidston and Mr Eric Jensen. We are committed to facilitating students’ artistic growth, for either balanced academic packages or the possibility of creative careers.
We’ve hit the ground running! Students in Years 7 to 12 have already visited the National and Portrait Galleries, expanding on what their idea of art is.
In our department, Year 7 and 8 students experience each of our subjects: visual arts, media and photography. In visual arts, students develop drawing, painting, ceramics and printmaking skills. In media and photography, students learn how to make innovative photographic images and media products.
Currently in visual arts, Year 9 is studying portraiture, preparing for the Young Archie’s Competition. Year 10 is upscaling a surrealist work by contemporary Filipino artist, Rodel Tapaya. Year 11 students have started their deep dive into the theory and practice of making narrative art. Year 12 students are creating ambitious works, including that of Nancy Hang, who is courageously integrating her 3D printing and visual arts skills for her work!
In photography, Year 9 is working playfully with new approaches to image making, which they applied in a novel context on their Sculpture Garden (National Gallery) excursion last week. We are particularly excited to run Year 11 and 12 photography this year. Students are enthusiastically growing in their image-making skills with our DSLR cameras, exploring narrative photography. Internationally respected Filipino journalistic photographer George Calvelo ran a workshop with students last week. Students were notably inspired and looking forward to Calvelo’s follow-up coaching session in March.
A significant aspect of our Visual Arts Department is that of the work of Tim Minehan, who coaches students to develop their media production skills. Mr Minehan builds students’ capacity to create media products and trains them for our Media Crew, which serves the College by capturing events through video, for example. This is such a rich learning experience for students, developing skills to work professionally, collaboratively and creatively in a team.
Another project we are excited about in our department this year, is that of our teacher Dimity Kidston, who is working on a tapestry as an artist in residence, enabling students to observe her practice. Read more about it here.