SYDNEY.- Art Rules 2020 showcasing the work from 24 HSC Visual Arts students opened at Hazelhurst Arts Centre December 19.

The works comment on the impact on their lives and important issues of this past year, including natural disasters and environmental change, the impacts of Covid-19 and lockdown, multiculturalism, as well as personal interests and passions such as space exploration, film, celebrities and dance.

In Australian Resilience: From the Ashes, Zoe Ball from Bethany College Hurstville has produced a triptych painting that focuses on the impact of this year’s devastating bush fires. Ball has conveyed the different stages of regeneration of Australia’s flora after the destruction of the fires with the middle panel depicting a dramatic scene of fire fighters hosing the flaming landscape.

Cronulla High School student Yumiko Casaceli has presented a sculptural work entitled Oak Park 52, three sculptures comprised of found objects collected during her time in lockdown. Gathered from the shoreline, these sculptures consist of flotsam and jetsam – drift wood and general debris washed up by the ebb and flow of the tide. In Oak Park 52, the collection of stranded objects and the tidal rhythms of the sea is a metaphor for the waves of the pandemic and its indiscriminate nature.

The three panelled work 2020 Triptych by Aleisha Palermo of De La Salle College Cronulla shows the human side of the pandemic. Palermo’s grandparents are depicted wearing face masks, a point she makes about only being able to see them when they were masked up. The black and white drawing captures the emotions and connection people have faced globally, adapting and navigating to a new way of living within an uncertain world.

Two highly innovative works featured in Art Rules 2020 are by Cameron Talbot-Smith and Felicity Morton. Cameron Talbot-Smith from St Patrick’s College Sutherland has created a photomedia work entitled Continental Extremities showing the extremities of the Australian landscape from the coast to the outback through drought and flood. Talbot-Smith has captured areal images using drone photography.

Impetus, a documented form by Felicity Morton of St Ursula’s College Kingsgrove, captures a performance of Morton using her body as the tool to create the artwork. Referencing the work of Heather Hansen, the work consists of a video showing Morton creating a drawing using charcoal and dance movement, alongside the finished charcoal drawing.