Graduate artists of the 2024 Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), University of Melbourne cohort are presenting an impressive selection of over 160 artworks at the Art Grad Show this year.
A buzzing crowd of teachers, students, friends, family and art industry folks attended the opening event on Thursday 21 November, and the graduate showcase runs until 28 November across the university’s Southbank Campus.
Overall this year, ArtsHub‘s attention was captured by the breadth and quality of sculptures, many of which exemplify rich conceptual backing as well as strong craftsmanship.
ArtsHub picks out five outstanding graduate artists with thoughtful pieces that reflect the zeitgeist and display great potential.
In this article:
Ziyi Wei (BFA – Honours)
Ziyi Wei’s bejewelled sculptural installations situated inside the Stables are as eye-catching as they are intricate, bringing to mind the accessorised headwear of certain Chinese ethnic groups with a haute couture sentimentality.
The pieces follow a similar aesthetic and exploration from her works in the 2023 VCA Bachelor Grad Show, with more complex assemblage and conceptual depth. The Return of Spontaneous Circulation presented this year involves a motor that allows the hanging sculpture to pulse like a biological heart, while Wei’s video work, showing a horror-esque scene of semi-autonomous characters inside a plastic pearl factory, rounds out the strong display.
Wei is the recipient of the 2024 George Paton Gallery Residency Award, VCA Art Awards.
Arthur Dimitriou (BFA – Honours)
This is not the first time ArtsHub has come across Arthur Dimitriou, whose fibreglass industrial reliefs were included in a group exhibition at Mary Cherry Contemporary in August/September this year. However, the playfulness of the slightly peculiar objects is heightened when displayed inside the architecture of the Stable as compared to a more sterile gallery space.
Dimitriou’s showcase includes fibreglass casts as well as found objects, such as a human bust attached to a vintage rocking horse.
Dimitriou is the recipient of the 2024 Daine Singer Award, VCA Art Awards.
Read: 2024 visual arts graduate show calendar
Ivana Lilith (BFA – Sculpture)
Ivana Lilith showcases a series of five divine pastel-toned graphite, oil, acrylic and impasto on canvas works, titled LEAVING THE WUNDERKAMMER: SEEKING DIVINITY. They hover in liminal space against a wall of dusty rose, beckoning visitors into the VCA Sculpture Shed.
The series highlights stories of creation and birth, fantasy and folklore, love and violence, and what Lilith terms a “transsexual ecofeminist renaissance”.
Lilith is the recipient of the 2024 Mailbox Art Space Award, VCA Art Awards.
Kyle Stanton (BFA – Drawing and Printmaking)
In a room filled from floor to ceiling with objects and installations, the carefully balanced pieces of Kyle Stanton feel invitingly meditative.
Steel bent like a spring and held in place with weights form tabletops for porous clay objects, at once ancient and tamed. Nearby, a ceramics piece suggestive of an animal specimen is enclosed in a glass jar filled with slightly yellowed water.
In Stanton’s sculptures, knowledge of our surrounding world is questioned with the casualness of paint-stained ware boards, making them all the more intriguing.
Yue Liu (BFA – Painting)
Yue Liu’s installation tips into the category of spatial intervention, but can be easily missed on the Art Studios 1 Mezzanine.
Verse 1 exemplifies mastery over a small cabinet-like space where found silver vessels are interconnected to the surrounding white walls via wire. A sense of otherness is highlighted through the institutional setting, and little insect-like attachments add to the skin-prickling sensation of the encounter.
The work feels cohesive, mature and worth the treasure hunt to locate if needed.
The VCA Art Grad Show runs until 28 November across Melbourne University’s Southbank Campus.
