ARTEXPRESS

In 2009 ARTEXPRESS will be 26 Years old! ARTEXPRESS is an annual program of exhibitions featuring exemplary bodies-of-work from the NSW Higher School Certificate Visual Arts examination. As part of the 2008 Higher School Certificate Visual Arts Examination, 9665 students submitted bodies-of-work. There were 535 students' works nominated for ARTEXPRESS and from these 310 students’ bodies-of-work were selected for exhibition from schools across NSW. Throughout 2009, 169 Government school students will have their bodies-of-work exhibited in separate exhibitions.

Ten distinct ARTEXPRESS exhibitions have been selected from the 2008 HSC Visual Arts examination bodies of bodies-of-work in 2009. There are four exhibitions held in metropolitan Sydney and six in regional NSW. The metropolitan exhibitions include the David Jones department store windows in Market Street Sydney (21 students’ works), Art Gallery of New South Wales (62 students’ works), the Armoury Gallery at Sydney Olympic Park (70 students’ works), and Hazlehurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre (56 students’ works). The regional exhibitions will begin at Newcastle Region Art Gallery (34 students’ works), followed by Wollongong City Gallery (22 students’ works), Bathurst Regional Gallery (53 students’ works), Tweed River Art Gallery (63 students’ works), Grafton Regional Gallery (56 students’ works), then finish in November at Glasshouse Regional Port Macquarie (50 students’ works). The regional exhibitions are comprised of 214 works . selected from the four metropolitan exhibitions and additional works selected for tour only. The total number of pieces for the touring exhibitions is 1991.

The ARTEXPRESS exhibition consists of the complete range of expressive forms submitted for the Higher School Certificate in Visual Arts and includes a comprehensive screening of film and animation in all gallery venues. As well as the comprehensive selection of work shown in metropolitan galleries and works by local students, regional gallery exhibitions this year focus on particular areas of practise. The exhibition at Wollongong focuses on Time Based works in conjunction with the launching of an online teacher’s resource produced by the College of Fine Arts (UNSW). Tweed River Gallery exhibition focuses on portraiture, Grafton explores notions of the environment, natural/urban personal/public and Port Macquarie presents abstraction across the expressive forms.

Further information concerning the 2009 Artexpress exhibitions is available from Susanne Jones, Artexpress Project Officer on 02 9550 9121.