Visual arts is a mandatory course for Stages 4 and 5 where students study art making, critical and historical studies through a use of the conceptual framework and a variety of frames.
The elective course allows students to further develop their critical understanding of the artist and different points of view of the visual arts. They also expand on their art making practice, using a variety of materials and techniques.
Students will develop knowledge and skills in visual arts when:
When critically and historically exploring the visual arts students will:
Visual Arts content is organised into 3 broad areas that are applied to both artmaking and critical and historical studies. Practice, the conceptual framework, and the frames provide a language and structure to support students in making meaningful, fully resolved artworks, and in their interpretation and analysis of other artists’ work. In Stage 4, practice, frames and the conceptual framework can be considered separately. As students progress through Stage 4 and 5, the relationships between these are explored in more meaningful ways.
Practice describes the intentional activity or work of artists and/or art critics and historians to produce and interpret artworks.
Practice can refer to the technical and material processes and procedures used by artists when creating artworks. It also includes their intentions and the meaning represented in their work, and the ways in which they are influenced by and apply their understanding of their world.
In critical and historical studies, practice can refer to the activity of art critics, historians, curators, and other artworld professionals, who all bring their own interests, influences, and intentions into their work.
The conceptual framework provides a model for understanding the network of relationships between artist, artwork, world, and audience. These agencies can be understood both in isolation and in relation to one another, for example as artist-world or artwork-audience relationships. Using the frames to apply a particular perspective to these relationships enables a deeper understanding of practice.
Artists make artworks, either individually or in groups such as collaborations, collectives, and movements. Artists are sometimes referred to by the main artmaking practice they use, such as painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, and conceptual artists. Artist can also refer to other practitioners including designers, architects, filmmakers, and performance artists.
Artworks are made by artists and are exhibited or displayed to audiences, who interpret them. Artworks have a physical form that can include 2-dimensional works like drawings and paintings, 3-dimensional works like sculptures and installations, and 4-dimensional works that can include performances, time-based works, and interactive experiences. Artworks have conceptual meaning that reflects the artists’ ideas, choices and actions.
Audiences view and interpret artworks, usually through an exhibition, performance, or public display. Audiences can include other artists, visitors to galleries and museums, art critics and historians, art gallery directors and curators, art dealers and people why buy art, as well as students, educators, and the general public.
The world refers to the time and place where artworks are made or interpreted, and the background of the people that make and interpret them. The world can also refer to the artworld of galleries, museums, and other institutions. An artist’s experience of the world influences their ideas and the choices they make in their artmaking practice. Audiences’ understandings of the world influence the way they value and interpret artworks.
The frames - subjective, cultural, structural, and postmodern - provide different perspectives or viewpoints for understanding the relationships between artist, artwork, world, and audience. The frames allow for a deeper focus on particular aspects of artworks and artist practice.
In the subjective frame, meaning is shaped by an understanding of personal and psychological experiences, including emotion, imagination, memory, the subconscious, and intuition.
In the cultural frame, meaning is informed by an understanding of social and cultural issues such as class, race, ethnicity, gender, politics, economics, technology, and the environment.
In the structural frame, meaning is constructed using the visual language of signs and symbols, which may be informed by art historical conventions and practices.
In the postmodern frame, traditional and mainstream ideas are challenged and new ideas and technologies are explored using practices including appropriation and intertextuality, and through the use of humour, parody, satire and irony.
The sample Stage 4 and Stage 5 scope and sequence documents provide teachers with overviews for programming and assessment in visual arts.
The four frames offer a flexible and robust lens through which to interpret artmaking, art criticism and art history. The frames provide an interpretive scaffold from which students can generate a range of understandings from different perspectives.
The frames resource (DOCX 81.7 KB) provides examples of how each frame can be used to explore the function of the ‘agencies of the artworld’ and the relationships between them.
A student-centered module which introduces the frames as a tool for understanding and engaging with different points of view in artmaking and critical and historical studies. Students demonstrate their knowledge by completing a series of reading, writing and artmaking activities that explore historical and contemporary artworks from subjective, cultural, structural and postmodern perspectives.
A student-centered module which explores portraiture as an area of practice, using the frames as a tool for understanding and engaging with different perspectives and points of view in artmaking and critical and historical studies. The first section, ‘Technical drawing practice’, contains a sequence of activities designed fro students to develop and refine their drawing skills as they learn about the conventions of portraiture. This is followed by four standalone lessons that apply the perspectives of the subjective, structural, cultural and postmodern frames to an artmaking and critical/historical activity exploring one or more focus artworks.
This 10 week unit of work investigates the artmaking practice of Barkindji printmaker Badger Bates. Students interpret the artist's use of visual language to represent personal and cultural meaning in his work ‘Mission Mob, Bend Mob, Wilcannia 1950s’, and then develop their own set of signs and symbols to create a lino print that represents a site that has personal significance to them.
This digital resource package provides Stage 5 students with opportunities to investigate and interpret contemporary intersections between art, technology, storytelling, social change and collaboration by focusing on the practice of five Australian artists including:
The KASCA visual arts framework breaks down the core components of practice, conceptual framework and the frames into a series lesson sequences. All lesson sequences come with ready-to-use differentiated learning and teaching resources and are available in an online format here and an e-book (PDF 12.75 MB) version that can be downloaded to your smart device.
The visual arts frames, conceptual framework and practice poster is available to print and display in your classroom via the link below.
The visual arts frames infographic (PDF 5.57 MB) defines and provides teaching and learning activities for each fame in an eye-catching format.
The visual arts frames included within this infographic are:
These teaching and learning strategies and the accompanying resource, reflects the findings of an evidence-based investigation of critical and creative thinking in visual arts classrooms in NSW.
This unit involves an investigation of drawing, painting and sculpture conventions to make an artwork that represents self. Students explore the conceptual framework to make artworks that represent themselves through signs and symbols in the structural and subjective frames. In critical and historical studies they investigate, interpret and explain how contemporary artists have represented themselves through the medium of sculpture.
Explore the sample unit signs and symbols.
This website may be useful in the teaching of visual arts for Stages 4 and 5.
Further information and teaching support is available on NSW 7-10 Visual Arts Syllabus (2003).
Student guided online learning sequences to support learning from home or in the classroom.
A student-centred online unit that builds understanding of the importance of mise en scene in film-making and photography. Students will investigate the practice of classic filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and his influence on four contemporary photographers inspired by his practice. Students will demonstrate their understanding of mise en scène in their art historical and critical writing and their artmaking. The activities would be appropriate for Photographic and Digital media and Visual Arts students.
