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NCEA Level 3 - Visual Arts 2011

Examples of Candidate Work – 90667 Painting

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Excellence

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Excellence

This folio is chosen as an exemplar because it is focusses on abstraction throughout. The majority of folios where abstract painting is undertaken begin with a phase of works devoted to gathering subject matter derived from observations of objects or scenes. While legitimate, I often suspect that such a starting point is not necessary or of particular interest to the candidate to develop their project.Candidates should feel free to derive subject matter from abstract pictorial motifs, or interrelationships between media as this one has. Compositional and procedural ideas are generated through simple mixed media works, with the collage based on a book cover being an apparent origin of an important motif and the use of stitching and dotted lines.Traditions of painting that use gesture and ecriture as both pictorial motif and process for making and thinking about the work are an influence on this candidate. Artists such as Antonio Tapies, Cy Twombly, Juliao Sarmento and John Reynolds appear relevant to this work.The painterly vocabulary of this folio is well understood by the candidate. Although restrained, the candidate is able to develop a substantial range of options through panel 1 which are analysed and prioritised in panel 2. Noteworthy is the change of tonal range of the works and the introduction of veils or glazes to increase the layering or depth of surface in the paintings.Also successful is the range of shifts of mark making which produce and effect of alterations of scale from the fine linear dot lines, into larger dash marks and then up to a single or grouped ‘I’ or ‘cross’ motif. The phases of working from the lower half of panel 2 and on panel 3, are modest in number but demonstrate the candidates’ ability to evaluate their ideas and methods and to build the series of work by altering composition, scale, colour scheme and textural treatment while maintaining the established vocabulary of motifs. This shows depth and insight.

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Excellence

This folio demonstrates the candidates’ proficient skill in the rendering of the illusion of 3-d forms and graphic linear pattern and the illusion of solid objects. The work also reveals an ability to move the work between referencing ta moko and whakairo, and painterly exchanges between figure and ground.

The work advances from the early, ’tea stained’ reference to parchment to a more successful underlay of stain or wash in blue and red where the rendering and drawing more elegantly weaves across the picture plane and mingles with the background.

Folios that have a large, space consuming work on panel 3 are often criticised in examiner reports because they often reduce the opportunity for the candidate to demonstrate how they have evaluated, deepened or expanded their understanding of their own work and advance their purpose. In this folio however, the final triptych of works shows how the candidate benefits from focussing on a careful rendering of forms (in the phase of works from the middle of panel 2 and the top of panel 3) and also upon what appears to be a thoughtful designing of the last work. The work also reveals the candidates ability to combine western and maori traditions of representation.

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Merit

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Merit

This folio is noteworthy for several reasons. It too shows the candidates limited skill in realist figure drawing, and the project takes a long time to develop into a coherent and purposeful inquiry where the pictorial idea becomes clear. The drawings of figures on panel 1 establish a subject matter but this is only loosely linked to a ‘narrative’ theme. The second and third phase of drawings of the floor plan and perspectival images of the rest home are where the subject matter for the project begins to take shape. The works of panel 2 reveal a divergent experimentation into several types of pictorial structure as the candidate works to develop an idea. The use of linear and planar forms and a consistent use of colour and tone are what holds the work together here. The works of the bottom of panel 2 and panel 3 show the ‘pay off’ as the structure and vocabulary of the work consolidate. The imaginative interpretation of the original subject matter and the sophisticated progression of the pictorial vocabulary produce sufficient evidence of the candidates’ knowledge of the possibilities of their chosen type of work and the systematic development of their purpose in the project.

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Merit

Every year we see a large cohort of folios devoted to cars and car culture. A vast majority of them revel in a lust for ‘The Fast and the Furious’ and ‘boy racing’ and are disabled by weak rendering and imagery that is trapped in its origins in the films and magazines. Not so this folio. This candidate’s use of photo-derived source imagery is used to guide the rendering and point of view. From the start this candidate sets about with inventions of composition and montages of imagery that are sustained throughout. The folio contains too many options as it progresses as the candidate invents narrative and pictorial themes one after the other. There is evidence that the candidate lacks a clarification of the purpose of the project as they put the subject through a broad range of paces. Despite this, the handling of graphic and illustrative devices is dynamic and skilful. The control of monochromatic and tonal schemes and shifts between linear (diagrammatic) and rendered illusions is likewise skilful and purposeful.

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Achieved

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Achieved

This folio contains a very simple pictorial proposition, one which reveals the candidates limited but adequate skill in drawing human figures and also a clear and genuine inquiry into delicate exchanges between realist observation and painterly rendering.

Panel 1 shows the candidates gathering of subject matter from either photographs or life study portraits using ink or watercolour. These demonstrate an inquiry into both the structure of portraits and how gentle layers of pigment can be applied to make an image emerge. The works of panel 2 are more iconic and the candidate begins to concentrate on effects of under and over painting and the gentle resonances of colour. The urban architectural spaces are introduced, made sense of and then the figure is included. The warmth and coolness of hue and how the figure can activate the space becomes the focus of the project in the latter sections of the folio. The inquiry of the first section is applied and improved upon and the candidates skill and control of procedure advances consistently throughout.

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Achieved

Again, this folio reveals the limitations in the candidates’ skill in figure drawing and painting, but also an ability to generate, develop and clarify a pictorial idea at a level appropriate to this examination. A single artist’s model (in Jeffrey Harris) is chosen and the candidate applies both a mode of expressive gesture and compositional devices from this model to their own subject matter. All the works show a genuine investigation into picture making where shallow pictorial space and graphic mark making are manipulated. The montage works on panel 3 are an advance on the simple layered juxtapositions of figure and textured background operating on panel one. These latter works demonstrate some control of gestural mark making and a more complex fractured composition than the works at the beginning. This modest project is skilful and systematic enough to achieve the standard.

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