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Local HSC art chosen for ArtExpress

FOUR Inner West students have crafted their way into the prestigious ArtExpress 2020 exhibition, which opens to the public this Thursday at the Art Gallery of NSW.

One of the Gallery’s most popular exhibitions, ArtExpress 2020 showcases outstanding works of art created by NSW students for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) Visual Arts examination in 2019 and is open until April 26.
Local students selected include Grace Troughton from Newtown High School of Performing Arts; Sarah Ong from Presbyterian Ladies’ College Sydney; and Anna Bunn Decombes and Zak Kalivas from Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design.
Grace who created ‘Speak Up’ depicting people with different types of hearing loss, as well as some of the devices, said: “I have a hearing impairment myself and so I wanted to spread awareness on how hearing can be damaged easily at an age.
“It’s difficult to have hearing loss in a world that’s not the most accessible with lots of discrimination against anyone who is not ‘normal’.
“It was a big surprise to be selected and though having no plans to study art further, I’m sure I will always keep it as a hobby.”
A lover of film, Anna wanted to explore historic processes and delved into ‘tin type’ photography, producing ‘Muse’ for the HSC.
“I am thrilled to be selected and had a lot of fun with it; I played around with the chemicals for a long time as the plate is both your negative and positive. It’s based on self portraits I’ve taken so I am almost like my own ‘muse’.”
Anna is taking a gap year before undertaking studies which combine art and science.
The Inner West cohort are among 48 young artists whose artwork was selected for the 36th annual ArtExpress from 8,552 student works submitted by government and non-government schools from across metropolitan and regional NSW.