More than meets the EYE

Aches and pains: Abbey Cody has work in EYE at the Mining Exchange, including this oil painting on canvas. Image: SUPPLIED

THE work of up-and-coming visual artists graduating from Federation University’s Arts Academy is now on show as part of the annual End of Year Exhibition, or EYE.

Open until Sunday, 4 December at the Ballarat Mining Exchange, the EYE display includes painting and drawing, sculptures and 3D works, ceramics, printmaking, graphic design, and digital art.

“EYE is a highlight of our annual public events program at the Arts Academy,” said Federation University Australia Associate Professor Richard Chew, the director of the Arts Academy.

“Students are given the opportunity to curate their work and present it to their communities in a professional setting.”

In partnership with lecturers, students have curated the EYE, which concludes and celebrates their two or three-year courses, which have been interrupted by the pandemic as they moved back and forth from virtual to in-classroom learning.

“Many of the students represented in this exhibition have spent time transitioning between campus and online learning for the greater part of two years and their achievement is testimony to their creativity, resilience and courage,” Mr Chew said.

An online version of the End of Year Exhibition is accessible to all and includes works from both Ballarat and Gippsland’s FedUni Arts Academy students.

The students’ aim is to reach an even wider audience than they would just in the physical gallery spaces.

Head to artspaces.kunstmatrix.com and search End of Year Exhibition to check out the show digitally.