Meet our
Visual Arts department, please feel free to contact us.
Every child wants to communicate visually nowadays, whether it be through photographs, Youtube, drawing, painting or design. And increasingly, every adult needs a knowledge of design, photography and visual presentation as these skills are taken "in-house" in the workforce.
Marsden has passionate Visual Arts teachers who provide a stimulating environment to teach the latest techniques in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Design, Digital design, Photography, Sculpture and Graphics.
The department is housed in its own attractive villa in the grounds, with art studios on the ground floor, a full photographic darkroom, lighting studio and Mac Design suite on the upper level. Senior students have their own studio space to work during their independent study time.
Some of the best work by Arts and Design students is hung throughout the school.
Students also enjoy a range of learning programmes that cross over into their other learning areas such as the sciences, music, religious education and social sciences. These opportunities extend thinking and a deeper understanding of the world around us, expressed through visual language.
Unique to Marsden is our Artist in Residence programme which provides a working artist with studio space for five weeks, enabling them to complete a body of work and run workshops with the girls. At the end of the residency an exhibition is held and a documentary video recorded as a learning resource for the girls' art studies.
The junior Art programmes provide students with the opportunity to experience a wide variety of art ideas and methods and to use varied media and processes. The present, the past and multicultural perspectives are introduced and the meaning and value of art is explored.
As well as the core Art curriculum the girls can opt into a half-year programme of Imagination and Creativity – the heart of the Visual Story-telling course. In this learning programme students investigate letter-forms and carved typography, illustration, printmaking, gold-leaf adornment, and more, while learning about communicating ideas and visual stories and the range of cultural influences in communicating ideas and meaning.
Senior NCEA courses prepare the girls for tertiary studies in the Creative Arts through a study in Painting, Design and Photography. Students undertake wide-ranging studies in processes and procedures in drawing, art making conventions that lead to the creation of a body of artworks. Experimentation with aspects of digital and video imagery are exciting extensions to the traditional art making practices.