At Backyard Opera we like to keep it fresh and what could be fresher than the works of the most recent graduates of Sydney’s art schools? So this week’s Culture Guide is devoted to the 2017 graduate shows. Don’t expect high-art of the likes that would grace the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, but do be prepared to be confronted with the most current and rapidly evolving ideas making their way across the art world.
2017 SCA Undergraduate Degree Show – Opening Tuesday, Nov 21 6-9pm
First up is SCA’s Undergraduate degree show. Part of the University of Sydney but located in the historic Callan Park Hospital, this exhibition is a good chance to get a look at the old sandstone buildings that comprise this campus before the school moves onto the main campus in Camperdown. Extending from jewellery to photomedia, many of the works here will have a heavy conceptual bent to them.
UNSW Art and Design Graduate Exhibition – Opening Tuesday, Nov 28 5-9pm
UNSW Art and Design’s exhibition will span across multiple venues both in the Art and Design campus in Paddington and the main UNSW campus in Kensington. The focus of this program is more skewed to media arts and design so look out for innovative uses of video and art works that move between craft, design and objects.
National Art School Graduate Exhibition – Opening Thursday 30 Nov, 6-10pm
The final show of the season demonstrates the work of graduates from the National Art School inside the cavernous Old Darlinghurst Gaol. With its focus on the craft and practice of art the works here will be the result of many painstaking hours spent in the studio.