Sensations Of Artmaking
Curatorial Work
Sensations of Art Making:
Triumphs, Torments and Risk-taking
Frater & McCubbin Galleries, Victorian Artists Society
October 2013
Curated by Purnima Ruanglertbutr
Professional artist-teachers explore the shared sensations that drive their art production and that of their students’ – the enthused moments of inspiration, battles, frustrations, joys, risk-taking, experimentation and construction of meaning. Thirty-one Melbourne University Master of Teaching (Secondary Art) graduates in their early teaching careers imaginatively and critically examine how their creative output increases their ability to mentor, stimulate and understand their students.
EXHIBITION CONCEPT & CURATOR’S STATEMENT
Sensations of Art-making: Triumphs, Torments and Risk-taking is the second annual exhibition that follows from the inaugural The Teacher as Art-maker Project (TAP) exhibition held in November 2012 at the George Paton Gallery, Crossing Boundaries: The Journey from Teacherto Teaching Artist. The exhibition explored the journey from an artist to a teacher, whereby the artists addressed issues relating to self-perceptions of their professional identity as an artist, a teacher, or both. This theme resulted in the display of over seventy works of art across a diverse array of art styles, mediums and techniques. Sensations of Art-making takes a different conceptual approach, encouraging professional artist-teachers to develop and promote their professional art practice. I invited the artists to explore the challenges and risks of their art-making, and to comment critically on how this feeds into their classroom practice. In doing so, they subjected themselves to experiencing similar sensations and processes encountered by their own students, unique to creativity – frustrations, anxieties, joys, experimentation and construction of meaning, among many others. The result is an eclectic collection of over one-hundred works of art created by thirty-one artist-teachers working in secondary schools or in other educational contexts across Victoria.
Our research has proven that beginning teachers face a myriad of challenges in the classroom – adjusting to school life, behaviour management, and building on the skills developed at university among them. But for art teachers, there is often the added challenge of maintaining a private art practice. The TAP exhibitions provide professional art teachers with the goals, motivation and support group to maintain an active art practice during the early years of their teaching career.
Continue reading the curator’s complete introduction in the exhibition catalogue.
GALLERY
