[intro music]

DANIELLE PALMER: Hi. I'm Danielle Palmer. I'm from Tempe High School. I'm a visual art teacher.

MELANIE CASSIN: I'm Melanie Cassini. I'm the head teacher of visual arts from Bossley Park High School.

CAROL MCGILVERY: And I'm Carol McGilvery. I'm the head teacher, creative and performing arts, at Kincumber High School, and today we're going to have a look at this highly successful collection of works called 'Acorn to Oak'.

MELANIE CASSIN: Well, straightaway, that title, Carol, I mean, it opens up a whole plethora of different interpretations there. So, we can see that there's growth from the acorn to the oak, and we have a young girl and an elderly woman. So, straightaway, you're making those connections between this is possibly the grandmother and this is the granddaughter. This could be the student, perhaps, and the way that she's gazing back towards the elderly woman is looking for advice, or she's looking for connection to her culture. I mean, look at the cultural references in the painting.

DANIELLE PALMER: Absolutely. It's certainly-- 'Acorn to Oak', it's set it up, that sense of time difference, generational gaps. But yeah, having this extra painting in the mix, which appears like quite a sumptuous still-life painting, but the closer you look at it, it actually is representing the acorn and the oak. It actually has the youth and the aged embedded.

CAROL MCGILVERY: Yes, Dani. It talks about time, and it talks-- this particular still-life painting, which has very clear references and nods to Dutch vanitas-style painting, is-- it's recontextualised. It's sort of postmodern frame characteristic in terms of its drawing in contemporary cultural iconography that would be associated, perhaps, with the world, the cultural world, that is the departure point for this particular student.

And you can see the concept of time being explored within the subject matter that is represented here through the cultural food and nature, the cutoff and the dying, of particular, of the plants within, and then we've got biscuits and cakes and various pieces that link in with the culture.

MELANIE CASSIN: Well, yeah. Well, if you look-- let's take a moment to unpack a couple of symbols. I'll just look at the fresh daisies at the front, on the side of the acorn. This is the life that you were just talking to. The sweets are on the on the side of the younger person. The foliage is alive. It's bright. But in contrast, on the other side, Dani?

DANIELLE PALMER: Yeah. Well, we've got those symbols of showing or relating to the idea of time passing. So, we've got what seems to be a snuffed-out candle. There's a candle that's clearly not lit. But there seems to be one being snuffed out. That's the idea of the harvest, something that's happened to have been cut down in its prime, and so it's there, fading, that wreath of corn on the side there. The aged book that's been leafed through and thumbed through-- hundreds of-- with extra things stuck into it. That's talking about time and collecting, and the whole thing is a collection of items that you might find in someone's house.

But there is-- definitely, the student understands the vehicle of the vanitas or the memento mori and the symbolism embedded within it. So, they've used that very traditional way of presenting this collection of objects. But they very cleverly linked them to these exquisite drawings down the front. So, yeah. So, while the student can clearly paint, they can clearly draw as well.

MELANIE CASSIN: And look at-- you're right. These are exquisite drawings, photo-realistic, Chuck Close style drawings here. The highlights, these beautiful, controlled marks of white to pick up highlights, every hair is painstakingly drawn and detailed.

DANIELLE PALMER: The pores of the skin.

MELANIE CASSIN: The pores of the skin, and just the compositions, too, are really interesting. Yeah.

CAROL MCGILVERY: And also, just talking about the emotional engagement with this piece because you feel a familiarity and a sense of connection with the grandmother, who I'm assuming here to be the grandmother, and empathy and connection with this relationship between the 2. Because it's so photo real, Mel, and because you can also-- you stand back from it, and you feel the realism, and you feel a connection.

But also, when you jump in quite close, you can see the mark making, and it's quite exquisite mark making. So, you can jump into that material practice that this student has achieved a beautiful accomplishment, high accomplishment with.

MELANIE CASSIN: This is a really good example of the student drawing on their art-making strengths. They can clearly know how to draw and paint, and they've showcased both, and that's a really wise choice. But also, looking at what they've chosen to draw, which is the portraits over the painting being the still life. We still we have 2 traditional art-making conventions on display here, your portraiture and still life, and they're so beautifully brought together to tell this narrative.

Without that painting, I would not have the link to the story and the signs and symbols that would-- that bring out the emotion of these portraits because these portraits alone could be just portraits of family members and generational shifts and looking back to the grandmother to try and connect culture. But the bringing in of that painting, with all the symbolic culture, just gives this work a whole other layer of meaning and more for us to interpret as an audience member.

CAROL MCGILVERY: Yeah, it's beautifully planned. There's a planning. There's an intention here with this particular work to unpack a narrative and to tell a story via the cultural frame and via this student's world at the time. So, our interpretive frameworks have been paramount in setting up the conceptual strength and the layers of meaning within this work, and I also just wanted to mention the device of the gold frame as well in terms of that being a clear and purposeful play on connecting in with the possibility of the art history narrative that they're asking the audience to draw into and to draw upon in decoding or unpacking the work.

DANIELLE PALMER: Yeah, it's interesting you should mention the frame. I was just thinking about the frame, going--

MELANIE CASSIN: It ties it all together.

DANIELLE PALMER: Well, it ties it together, and it makes the painting and the objects become precious.

CAROL MCGILVERY: That's a beautiful point, Dani.

MELANIE CASSIN: Yeah.

DANIELLE PALMER: But I think she's looking at her grandmother as if she's the precious thing, and the glints and the shine that are on Grandma are like the glints and the shine around the beautiful old silver and the things that are precious within the paintings.

MELANIE CASSIN: And it's interesting that--

DANIELLE PALMER: She's become the most precious thing.

MELANIE CASSIN: Yeah. It's a beautiful--

DANIELLE PALMER: She's gorgeous. Well, she's-- look at her. She's just--

MELANIE CASSIN: I think what's interesting, too, about the frame-- and you raise a really good question because, traditionally, it's not-- there's not an expectation that students frame or mount their work. But this has been a deliberate choice. This is almost part of the artwork, that the frame has been an intentional decision to connect the culture throughout this piece, not for presentation value. It's there for meaning.

CAROL MCGILVERY: To enhance the layout.

MELANIE CASSIN: Symbolic meaning. Yeah.

CAROL MCGILVERY: To enhance the meaning.

DANIELLE PALMER: Yeah, and it's a shift in tradition. Traditionally, yes, a gold frame around these objects to say, 'I'm rich. I own these things. Look at all the wealth I have in this world.'

CAROL MCGILVERY: But this student is rich due to the relationship with the grandmother and the relationship with culture.

DANIELLE PALMER: Yeah.

MELANIE CASSIN: Yes.

DANIELLE PALMER: It's a beautiful piece.

CAROL MCGILVERY: Beautiful.

MELANIE CASSIN: It really is beautifully well executed. So, bringing these 2 portraits together with the still life together to tell this cultural narrative is a really amazing example of a successful collection of works that encompasses 2 or more expressive forms really well.

[gentle music playing]