Mahalia Kluwer with her work 'What a time to be alive' (2015). Kew High School, Kew. Photo: NGV Photographic Services. All images courtesy of the NGV
They haven’t hit their twenties yet, but these teenagers are kicking major art goals. Featuring a neon-lit shrine to Paris Hilton, intimate portraits of an ex-boyfriend, and petri dishes filled with painted microbes, the National Gallery of Victoria is currently exhibiting the best work from the state’s graduating high school students. Here are six emerging artists who caught our eye.
Mahalia Kluwer 'What a time to be alive' (2015). Kew High School, Kew.
Mahalia Kluwer’s mixed media sculpture What a time to be alive pokes fun at celebrity culture. She tells The Creators Project that the piece is a “satirical commentary on the 21st century, how we live in today’s society, and how many people will blindly follow false leaders.” Paris Hilton’s face has been photoshopped onto the Virgin Mary because “she couldn’t be further from that biblical figure, but people look up to her as if she were one.” The piece incorporates resin, gold leaf, papier mâché, LED lights, polystyrene, aerated concrete and other materials.
Angharad Neal-Williams’s petri dishes are much more aesthetically pleasing than your average lab experiment; they look like they contain something resembling a cross between tie dye and agate. Neal-Williams tells The Creators Project that she was “attempting to develop an artwork that displayed a scientific aesthetic, yet at the same time could be appreciated for its detail, line work, and colour.” Using gouache, water, and hot and cold pressed papers, her work—much like a science project—was based in experimentation. She is now studying communication design and working on a zine.
Madeline George 'Untitled #1' (2015). Monbulk College, Monbulk.
At 17, Madeline George is already studying communication design at an honours level while simultaneously completing high school. Inspired by the work of Doug and Mike Starn (“who fascinated me to find beauty in nature that we don’t usually see”), George’s photo work is a macro look at plant life and the crazy detail of nature. “I loved the simplicity that was seen in the beautiful flowers I captured,” she tells us, “and I was intrigued to show others how amazing this simple beauty truly is.”
Tom Habal 'Fluidity' (2015). Kingswood College, Box Hill
Tom Habal was interested in how the human body is seen as being physically and anatomically strong, yet is mostly made up of water. It was this ‘unseen liquidity’ that informed the sense of movement in his work, created through a slit-scan technique.
Sophie Anstis 'Seven hours difference' (2015). Damascus College Ballarat, Mount Clear.
With Indonesian as her second language, Sophie Anstis was interested in looking at differences between Australian and Indonesian culture in her photo series. Seven Hours Difference captures the same everyday scenes in Melbourne and Java, and suggests that while the time (and geographical) difference is minor between these two places, social and cultural differences run deep. Anstis is about to start studying a Bachelor of Criminology and Psychology, explaining that “this sounds pretty different to photography, but it is still related to concepts of identity and personality, which is what the overall theme was for my artwork.”
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