Anna Zhong[1]
ARTEXPRESS 2012
Anna Zhong was asked to speak to the gathering of official guests, students and their families at the opening of ARTEXPRESS on Wednesday February 22, at the Art Gallery of NSW. Good morning. I was asked to speak about my art-making process and my whole experience of the year 12 Visual Arts course. As I was writing this speech, I remembered something significant. About a year ago during the summer holidays, I received a phone call (many, in fact, since I kept trying to avoid them) from an educational survey centre. When they finally got me to answer their survey, they asked me a simple question that put me on the spot. The question was: What are your goals for school this year? Well I, being quite accustomed to lazing around in the summer holidays, was not at all in the mood to think about the HSC ahead. So I just said what was on the top of my head, which was ‘oh 99.95 ATAR of course’. No I’m just kidding. I actually said, ‘I want to accomplish a Body of Work that I will be very proud of.’ I knew there would be times when I’d lose faith in the creative process- and I assure you, there were plenty of those. I’m sure every artist can relate to the moments of frustration when nothing substantial comes out onto the canvas, or the paper, or whatever medium you are using. My whole concept of painting indulgent foods happened quite accidentally, about halfway throughout year 12- just in time for me to realise that I should never ever give up on doing what I love most, and that is creating art.
Herald Education teaching and learning resources www.heraldeducation.com.au
March 2012
I had been struggling to come up with something that was true to myself. I knew I loved paint, colour and beautifully tempting images- and so my art teacher at school, Mr Goggin, suggested that I take a deep breath… and, in his words, ‘consider painting, I dunno, food or something.’ Before I could protest too much, he encouraged me to borrow a few cookbooks from the library and see where things went from there. I remember taking a discarded canvas on which a Year 9 kid had previously painted a very abstract rendition of Uluru (and which my teacher liked to call ‘the Pimple’) and quite flippantly painting all over it. As I painted, however, the texture of the images captivated me and led me to ideas of humanity’s indulgence- concepts that I had always wrestled with as I observed the world around me. Using my paintbrush, I cranked up the dial for saturation of colours, gooeyness and stickiness. It was all quite fun actually. I felt liberated, quite literally like a child given too much cake. Indeed, I did have a lot of desserts to photograph and play with. That first painting, originally intended to be ‘an experiment’, turned out to be my scone, which is a part of my Body of Work today. It still sits on top of Uluru. Following the first one, the other paintings just found their place, in between a lot of sleepless nights spent putting in the final meticulous details before the due date, of course. Art is such an idiosyncratic process. You make up your own rules, ideas pop up when you least expect it, and that’s why I love it. So what is all this wonderful stuff produced by my fellow peers hanging on the walls of the art gallery? It’s a lot of things- the story of a person’s life, the memories from childhood, something created for fun, the attachments to culture, heritage or people, or in my case, an ironically alluring tribute to standing firm against temptation. After all, it tells my story of eventually being able to tackle my own temptations of not producing this BOW- and I have many people to thank for this: my parents, who encouraged me in my pursuit of the fine arts since a child, and of course, and Mr Goggin, without whom I would never have even completed the Visual Arts course. Funnily enough, I can’t wait to tell the guy from the educational survey centre about the outcome of my goal when he calls this year. I can safely say that I have happily achieved itnot because it’s hanging in the Art Gallery of NSW, but because I am genuinely glad that ‘Healthy Living’ grew into something that only I could have created. Enjoy the exhibition!
Life after the HSC I am doing a combined Bachelor of Law/ Bachelor of International and Global Studies at the University of Sydney this year- clearly quite different from the creative field, but I'm sure I'll always be making art throughout my life.
Resources • • •
ARTEXPRESS www.artexpress.nsw.edu.au/ Art Gallery of NSW www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/artexpress-2012/ Board of Studies www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/exhibitions/
Herald Education teaching and learning resources www.heraldeducation.com.au
March 2012
Anna Zhong was asked to speak to the gathering of official guests, students and their families at the opening of ARTEXPRESS on Wednesday February 22, at the Art Gallery of NSW. Good morning. I was asked to speak about my art-making process and my whole experience of the year 12 Visual Arts course. As I was writing this speech, I remembered something significant. About a year ago during the summer holidays, I received a phone call (many, in fact, since I kept trying to avoid them) from an educational survey centre. When they finally got me to answer their survey, they asked me a simple question that put me on the spot. The question was: What are your goals for school this year? Well I, being quite accustomed to lazing around in the summer holidays, was not at all in the mood to think about the HSC ahead. So I just said what was on the top of my head, which was ‘oh 99.95 ATAR of course’. No I’m just kidding. I actually said, ‘I want to accomplish a Body of Work that I will be very proud of.’ I knew there would be times when I’d lose faith in the creative process- and I assure you, there were plenty of those. I’m sure every artist can relate to the moments of frustration when nothing substantial comes out onto the canvas, or the paper, or whatever medium you are using. My whole concept of painting indulgent foods happened quite accidentally, about halfway throughout year 12- just in time for me to realise that I should never ever give up on doing what I love most, and that is creating art.
Herald Education teaching and learning resources www.heraldeducation.com.au
March 2012
I had been struggling to come up with something that was true to myself. I knew I loved paint, colour and beautifully tempting images- and so my art teacher at school, Mr Goggin, suggested that I take a deep breath… and, in his words, ‘consider painting, I dunno, food or something.’ Before I could protest too much, he encouraged me to borrow a few cookbooks from the library and see where things went from there. I remember taking a discarded canvas on which a Year 9 kid had previously painted a very abstract rendition of Uluru (and which my teacher liked to call ‘the Pimple’) and quite flippantly painting all over it. As I painted, however, the texture of the images captivated me and led me to ideas of humanity’s indulgence- concepts that I had always wrestled with as I observed the world around me. Using my paintbrush, I cranked up the dial for saturation of colours, gooeyness and stickiness. It was all quite fun actually. I felt liberated, quite literally like a child given too much cake. Indeed, I did have a lot of desserts to photograph and play with. That first painting, originally intended to be ‘an experiment’, turned out to be my scone, which is a part of my Body of Work today. It still sits on top of Uluru. Following the first one, the other paintings just found their place, in between a lot of sleepless nights spent putting in the final meticulous details before the due date, of course. Art is such an idiosyncratic process. You make up your own rules, ideas pop up when you least expect it, and that’s why I love it. So what is all this wonderful stuff produced by my fellow peers hanging on the walls of the art gallery? It’s a lot of things- the story of a person’s life, the memories from childhood, something created for fun, the attachments to culture, heritage or people, or in my case, an ironically alluring tribute to standing firm against temptation. After all, it tells my story of eventually being able to tackle my own temptations of not producing this BOW- and I have many people to thank for this: my parents, who encouraged me in my pursuit of the fine arts since a child, and of course, and Mr Goggin, without whom I would never have even completed the Visual Arts course. Funnily enough, I can’t wait to tell the guy from the educational survey centre about the outcome of my goal when he calls this year. I can safely say that I have happily achieved itnot because it’s hanging in the Art Gallery of NSW, but because I am genuinely glad that ‘Healthy Living’ grew into something that only I could have created. Enjoy the exhibition!
Life after the HSC I am doing a combined Bachelor of Law/ Bachelor of International and Global Studies at the University of Sydney this year- clearly quite different from the creative field, but I'm sure I'll always be making art throughout my life.
Resources • • •
ARTEXPRESS www.artexpress.nsw.edu.au/ Art Gallery of NSW www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/artexpress-2012/ Board of Studies www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/exhibitions/
Herald Education teaching and learning resources www.heraldeducation.com.au
March 2012
