PlayStation and Google for Visual Arts student

Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours student Chris Sutevski’s unique approach to art was obvious from a young age. 

“My art practice is very systematic,” he explains. “I remember vividly we had to do some colouring in when I was in Year 1. Everyone else was kind of just messing around, but I went through and very systematically coloured this pattern.”

Chris has applied this same approach to his latest work, which was showcased in the Graduating Exhibition at the School of Art. Chris will be graduating from the Printmedia and Drawing Workshop.

“I started with a rock and interpreted it in 10 different ways,” he explains.

“One of the ways was using Google. You can search Google with an image – not just text.

“First I drew the rock for 20 minutes without looking at the paper. Then I fed the image into Google and drew the first search result. And then I took that drawing and fed it back into Google and so on.”

Chris repeated the process 10 times, giving rise to the name of the series, Recursive.                

“It’s sort of like a game of Chinese whispers where it slowly changes,” he says.

For another interpretation, Chris attached a PlayStation movement-tracking camera to a pair of glasses and looked at the rock for 20 minutes.

“It was like drawing with my eye movements,” he says. “I’d take the video and draw from that. Then the next process would be looking at that drawing with the glasses on again for 20 minutes and then drawing from it again.”

Chris’ other innovative techniques included using an online program to convert the rock into soundwaves, drawing the negative space of the rock, and working by memory.

“There was also a collaborative process where I got somebody else to draw my drawing,” he says.

Chris is already putting his skills to work, with a job as a graphic designer for design agency Inklab in Fyshwick.

“I am always tinkering with things, always pushing things around and seeing what the possibilities are.”

The 2013 ANU School of Art Graduating Exhibition ran from 29 November to 8 December in the School of Art Gallery http://bit.ly/rep_gradshow

Check out more of Chris’ work at http://chrissutevski.com/