Opening eye on graduating artists

THE works of Federation University’s graduating visual arts students are set to go on display next week as part of the institution’s annual end of year, or EYE, exhibition.

Featuring five bachelor of visual arts students and two TAFE graduates, the show, which has long taken place at the Ballarat Mining Exchange, will this time take place at Fed Uni’s Post Office Gallery.

Course coordinator James Pasakos said the exhibition is all about showcasing students in a professional gallery setting.

“It feeds into our cooperative model of working with industry, working with their curator and displaying their work in that sort of environment,” he said.

“We’ve exhibited works in 2017 or 2018 at the Post Office Gallery before, and we’re doing it again because of the lower numbers coming through the course.

“It’s a smaller gallery, lit well with beautiful lighting. It’s a tighter show with a certain flow and arrangement. It’s very important we select works that will work with the space.”

Third year matured-aged visual art student Clayton Keefe will be one of the participating artists, and submitted seven photographs primarily exploring anxieties behind artificial intelligence.

The upcoming show will be his first EYE exhibition as a third-year student, having taken part in an online capacity in 2020 when completing his advanced diploma in graphic design, and in-person before that in 2019.

Coming off his first solo exhibition, in Brunswick’s TCB Art last year, he said he’s keen to display his work to industry professionals.

“I’ve been enough times in the past to see there’s a significant cohort of industry people,” he said.

“We get to see them come along and how they respond to it. It’s interesting as a student, you’re required to journal and rationale your progress whereas when it’s on the wall, they’re looking at it from an open perspective.

“In the first semester, my work was based around why do we want to make an artificial lifeform in a human form.

“In this second semester, it’s more what do I do to a human form before it is no longer recognisable as human. It’s uncanny valley syndrome and what makes us human and not human.”

The EYE exhibition will run from Friday 10 until Sunday 26 November.