ARTEXPRESS comes together through the efforts of many people, including the visual arts teachers who mark the HSC Bodies of Work, the individual galleries which assist in curating the exhibitions, and officers from the NSW Department of Education & Training and the Board of Studies NSW.

Over 8000 students in government and non-government schools submitted a Body of Work for their artmaking component of the 2004 Higher School Certificate visual arts examination.

As far as possible each student's entire Body of Work as submitted for examination is represented in the ARTEXPRESS exhibitions. At each venue, Bodies of Work on display include works that are conceptually connected, where ideas are elaborated and reiterated, and where meanings make significant references and register on a number of levels. We view technically refined and discerning works together with other works which appear to be less resolved within the same Body of Work. Nevertheless, these apparently less resolved pieces make an even more powerful contribution to our understandings of the students' thinking and actions in making art.

Marking the works
Bodies of Work from schools, mostly from the Sydney metropolitan area, were sent to the Visual Arts Marking Centre at Homebush Bay to be marked. Bodies of Work from the remaining metropolitan schools and all country districts were marked in each school by visiting teams of markers.

Two teams assess each Body of Work by referring to marking guidelines prepared in response to the new Standards Referenced Framework HSC. Guidelines are expressed in terms of the knowledge and skills demanded by the task. The guidelines focus on the conceptual and material practice of the student as represented in his or her Body of Work.

Samples of work from five 10-mark levels in each media area are established to create visual Schemes with accompanying written comments (derived from markers' comments to a set of questions). Schemes are correlated across the media areas to ensure comparability and consistency. Copies of these Schemes are used to brief all marking teams. Marking teams then assess all the Bodies of Work against the Marking Guidelines and their knowledge of the Marking Scheme, ie the scales and comments. The whole process takes months to complete.

Bodies of Work come from all media areas described in the visual arts syllabus - drawing, graphic design, painting, printmaking, photography, designed objects and environments, textiles and fibre, sculpture, documented forms, ceramics, digital media, film and video, digital animation, interactives and collections of works.

Selecting works for ARTEXPRESS
The Bodies of Work selected for ARTEXPRESS illustrate the exceptional standards achieved by visual arts students in NSW schools. The works are also chosen for their potential in contributing to a unified exhibition that covers a broad range of subject matter, styles and expressive forms, as well as represents a wide range of schools across New South Wales. In a typical 21st-century year, media include painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, photography, digital media, collection of works, drawing, graphic design, textiles and fibre, digital animation, film and video.

This year there were 857 works in the ARTEXPRESS selection pool. Altogether over 9000 individual pieces of artworks were handled during the preselection process. Particular criteria now become important and care is taken to select works that represent both government and non-government schools and reflect the range of media submitted and work as a coherent exhibition across the various venues. A specific approach to the selection is adopted for each venue in order to differentiate the various ARTEXPRESS exhibitions.

Once again this year's exhibition reflects many interesting themes ranging from issues of political, social, cultural and spiritual significance through to aspects of personal identity and home environment. In the creation of these works, the students have demonstrated their understanding and mastery of a wide range of media, conventions and techniques.

This year's selection was made by officers from the host venues in conjunction with the ARTEXPRESS coordinator. The exhibiting venues in the city are The Art Gallery of New South Wales, David Jones, The College of Fine Arts (UNSW), the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre and a new venue for 2005 - Sydney Olympic Park. The regional tour, curated by the ARTEXPRESS coordinator, includes Newcastle, Griffith, Bathurst, Lismore, Armidale and Goulburn Regional Art Galleries.

Lesley Brown, Manager of ARTEXPRESS &
Tristan Sharp, Senior Coordinator of Education Programs, Art Gallery of New South Wales

(Parts of this article were first published in Look magazine, Art Gallery Society of NSW, Feb 2005.)