ANU art graduates show their best works

Ciara O'Brien with her work Life Jacket Graveyard.

Ciara O'Brien with her work Life Jacket Graveyard.

The works of the latest ANU School of Art graduates have gone on display with the 2016 Graduating Exhibition, which is open to the public from Saturday 26 November until Sunday 4 December.
 
Among the items on show are a series of pieces created by hugging molten hot glass in a borrowed firefighter's suit, a musical performance using glass instruments, and a large photographic print of a life jacket graveyard.
 
Head of the School of Art, Associate Professor Denise Ferris, said the exhibition was the culmination of years of study in art practice, history and theory, and will showcase works from ceramics, furniture, glass, gold and silversmithing, painting, photography, print media and drawing, sculpture and textiles.
 
"Our students continue to engage with global themes, but the Graduating Exhibition also includes works that reflect on being human and personal themes," she said.
 
Catherine Newton, graduating with a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours, created a series called Mum's hugs which were shaped by hugging molten glass in a firefighter's suit.
 
"The first time was quite frightening because I was looking up and seeing this big ball of red hot glass travelling towards me," she said.
 
Her work focuses on embodying maternal love and intimacy.
 
Sara Humphrey, who is also completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours, has used glass to create instruments, working them into a live performance.
 
"My work is a music performance on glass instruments. I have designed blown glass wind instruments with clarinet mouthpieces, learned to play them and written music for them," she said.
 
"My work looks at the nuanced relationships between an instrument, a performer's body and the sound."
 
Ciara O’Brien, a Bachelor of International Relations and Visual Arts, based her work on time spent volunteering on the island of Lesvos in Greece. 
 
“Lesvos has received hundreds of thousands of boat arrivals from Turkey. In response I have created a large mural print of the Life Jacket Graveyard, a dump on the island filled with thousands of life jackets from refugee arrivals,” she said.