A large crowd of Visual Art Patrons experienced a sophisticated, sensory and spectacular evening of Fine Art at the Sheldon College Senior Art (smART) Exhibition last Wednesday evening. 
The annual flagship event for the Visual Arts Department was held in the Senior Learning Centre and presented an eclectic collection of sculptures, paintings, photographs, prints, drawings and Wearable Art to highlight the immense talent of Sheldon College students studying in the creative arts.
Proceedings began with the annual parade of our award winning Wearable Artists and their dazzling creations, which featured pieces by both Charlotte Balfour and Taylor Gray, who gained first and second place respectively in the Queensland Category of the Australian Teenage Fashion Awards and will now go on to attend the National Final.
A number of prestigious awards were presented on the evening to our practising artists for their incredible work in both the creation and critique of artworks. Our Visual Literacy Award Winners for Art Critique were Aliya Yildrim (Year 9), Angel Low (Year 10), Bronwyn Myers (Year 11) and Isabella Ibrahim (Year 12). Each of these students had demonstrated a deep and mature understanding of expressing their thoughts, feelings and opinions through responding in written forms about artworks. As well as officially graduating our current Year 12 Visual Art students, major creation awards were presented for Emerging Artist to Angel Low (Year 10), The SLC Packers Award to Hannah March (Year 10), Wearable Art Award to Charlotte Balfour (Year 11), Creative Explorer to Damien Randall (Year 12), Original Artwork of the Year to Stacey Whitlock (Year 12), Spirit of the Artist to Taylor Gray (Year 12) and Master Artist to Brooke Smith (Year 12).
The smArt Exhibition showed that Senior Visual Art not only aims to provide students with skills and experiences across a range of media, but also to experiment with, explore and question ideas and concepts. The challenging, or at times confronting, elements of some pieces reflect the serious and deeply reflective analytical and evaluative thought process that the students undertake in the process of creating their pieces. This was another successful and inspirational exhibition by some very talented young artists.
