Top Arts 2022 – Yating (Annie) Zhang

Annie started her process by exploring a broad concept of ‘Philosophies of Life’ using a comprehensive mind map. By brainstorming ideas she was able to establish a broad range of options without initially evaluating them or being limited by what she thought she could represent visually.

After narrowing her concept down to ‘Subjectivism’ and how people create their own meaning. She begins by considering the world around her and different aspects of Melbourne.

Annie starts with personal research and begins to highlight her personal responses to Melbourne and its people through photography and sketching.

Annie continues to represent her response to her personal experience and conveys her thinking visually with trials in painting and through critical annotation.

Having chosen to focus on the artforms of drawing and painting to explore the urban landscape of Melbourne, Annie now begins to explore a range of artforms including photography, drawing and painting.

She continues to experiment with painting and the trialling of her selected artforms, materials and techniques are being supported by compositional trials. Annie has taken her own photographs to help develop her visual language and communicate her ideas. Her thinking is conveyed through annotation and shows how her experimentation is relevant to her personal ideas.

Annie continues to do personal research, which she records with photography, to generate alternative imagery that she explores in her selected media.

Annie constantly challenges herself and experiments with different ways of working relevant to her ideas. She explores perspective by researching ways of using this for architectural drawing.

Having settled on painting as her preferred art form, Annie experiments with a range of materials and techniques, constantly introducing new imagery and subject matter relevant to her personal ideas, throughout the art process.

While figures have appeared in her urban landscapes Annie extends her experimentation to the study of human figure, constantly pushing herself as she moves through her art process.

Annie has used the language of the frameworks throughout her Visual Diary, identifying which framework she is applying by means of a colour code and highlighting. The annotations appear to have been done in real time and indicate how her thinking and working practices aligned with the analytical frameworks. Although she has not made explicit verbal reference to them throughout the process, this is rectified in the discussion of her final painting where she uses labels to identify each of the frameworks she is using. It would have been beneficial to state the framework prior to annotating it as this would have established the language and references required as she applied her framework.

Annie included comprehensive evidence that she understands how to apply the Analytical Frameworks to the discussion of her art process and her final artwork.

Annie continues to experiment with her media and techniques throughout the art process, applying these to images based on her own photographs. She uses her annotation to consider the art elements and principles she uses in the painting. She discusses the structural aspects of her trial and how they convey ideas, as she starts to consider her visual language.

Annie has demonstrated her understanding of visual language through the experimentation, development and refinement of materials, techniques and processes. Through visual and written documentation, she discusses the links between her intentions and the progression of her artwork.

Annie has explored her materials and techniques and trialled different approaches to her ideas. While she has considered her visual language and how the elements and principles help to convey her intention throughout her art process, here she starts to bring things together and discusses her visual language and what she would like to do with her final painting. She is annotating decisions she has made to best communicate her personal ideas using the selected materials and techniques.

Annie refines her image using her own digital photographs and Photoshop to create a composite composition that best communicates her ideas about Melbourne.

The finished artwork, alongside her art process, demonstrates the refinement in Annie’s application of skill and the refinement and resolution of her personal ideas and concepts in all stages of the art process. The painting has clearly developed throughout the art process, showing evidence of the trials that came before.

In response to the ideas she is considering, presented in written form, Annie starts her Unit 4 art process by researching landscape painting to provide inspiration for her ongoing body of work.

Having chosen the direction she intends going in Unit 4 and inspired by her research, Amy begins to explore landscape through drawing, extending the skills that she had developed in Unit 3. Her critical annotation clarifies her thinking and demonstrates her consideration of visual language as she begins to investigate and experiment with materials and techniques.

After starting with the exploration of the broader world through landscapes, further targeted research and analysis helps Annie to establish the direction she will take in Unit 4. She begins a more personal approach and explores her place in the world and the Australian landscape in particular. Using personal photographs as reference she begins her exploration, investigation and experimentation of materials, techniques in both drawing and painting.

As in Unit 3 Annie does not limit her exploration to the environment but considers the human figure and its place in our world. She takes advantage of life drawing for this alternate representation of her idea, expanding on her exploration of materials and techniques.

Annie is able to quickly develop her application of her selected materials, techniques and processes to the new idea of the figure, based on the strong foundation she established in Unit 3. She uses photography again to explore her intended subject matter and composition, providing clear reference from which to paint.

Annie continues to use her drawing skill to consider her subject matter and how this is placed into the format to create successful compositions in order to refine and realise her personal ideas and concepts.

Annie uses critical annotations to discuss her process and evaluate how effective her decisions are in communicating her ideas. She is critical of her visual language, refining her approach in order to resolve her ideas and visual imagery throughout Unit 4.

Annie uses her annotations to reflect on the manipulation of her visual language and how the qualities of her materials and technique as well as her selected image help her to visually resolve and communicate her ideas.

Annie established a personal visual language in Unit 3 and continues to develop and refine this in Unit 4, moving from the urban to rural environment and considers how the figure relates to this environment. She uses trials and annotation to further explore and refine her visual language resolving into finished artworks that successfully capture her personal ideas.

The development of ideas and skills established in Unit 3 and the continued refinement of these in Unit 4 allowed Annie to quickly resolve her concept, leading to her first final for Unit 4.

Annie evaluates, reflects and demonstrates an understanding of her own art practice in resolving her finished artworks. She considers the decisions she has made and the application of materials and techniques.

Annie resolves her personal ideas and skills throughout her visual diary using exploratory trials and in her finished work. She demonstrates a consistent level of skill as seen on this page and constantly challenges herself in an attempt to find the best resolution. Her ideas and concepts are consistent and show a clear development towards the final resolution.

Amy resolves her personal ideas and skills in her final artwork that demonstrates how she has benefitted from the extensive trials throughout her body of work in both Unit 3 and Unit 4. She demonstrates a high level of consistent skill and she successfully resolves her intention in the final painting.

Throughout both Units Annie has used the different frameworks and at the start of Unit 4 clarified the identification of their use with a colour key.

From the initial stages of Unit 4 where she is trying to establish the ideas she will explore, Annie applies the language of the frameworks in her written reflection. On this page she applies the Personal framework, identified with the pink highlight to consider personal life experiences and how these influence her ideas.

As Annie begins to explore landscape through research and drawing. Her annotation uses the Structural and Personal Frameworks to convey what has influenced the ideas she is exploring and she uses them as a lens to consider the subject matter she has chosen to paint.

On this page Annie conveys her intention for her first Unit 4 final artwork by applying the Personal Framework.  She has consistently applied art terminology along with her use of the frameworks to evaluate, reflect, and explain her artmaking.

Annie has consistently applied the use of the analytical frameworks and art terminology in Unit 4 to evaluate, reflect upon, and justify her decisions and ideas. While the use of the colour key clearly identifies her appropriate and correct application of all four frameworks it is recommended that the frameworks are identified in writing. This allows you to consider the language of each framework before you use them.