For the second year in a row, a Duval High School student has achieved a nomination for Art Express. Nicola Traise a 2011 Year 12 Duval High School student created a Visual Art Body of Work called ‘Skin Scapes”¦”¦Show me your legs’, a collection of 13 mixed media paintings.
Nicola created her Body of Work from a single word ‘Imperfection’, an idea she developed from the nature of the perfect human skin surface becoming imperfect from injury, abuse, accident or age. Nicola explored bruising, burns, ulcers, varicose veins, scars and skin cancers and soon it became obvious to her that the fragile skin of our earth suffers the same process through human misuse, land degradation, erosion, burning, clear felling and scarring.
Nicola’ s work is creative, with her use of mixed media which includes latex, paint, wax, resin, charcoal, glass paint and fire. At one stage, Nicola burnt her canvases to achieve realism. Her work is also an academic art work, based on in depth research from surgical and medical books, photographing her own bruises, models of scars and understanding the process of skin changing on a macro and micro level.
Nicola was influenced by many people. Artist Anselm Kiefer gave her the freedom to explore media and the deeper meaning art can hold. Her art teacher, Sheree Roberts, gave her time and experience to keep her developing more work and ideas.
“Duval has given me so many opportunities to participate in art, such as extension art classes on Sundays, musicals like ‘Bugsy Malone’ and involvement in school decision making with the SRC,” said Nicola.
Nicola intends to follow her career in art by studying architecture at university in 2012.
