PLC Sydney is proud of our Year 12 Visual Arts cohort and the creativity, technical skill and dedication demonstrated across their bodies of work.

Seven students have had their Visual Arts bodies of work recognised by NESA and nominated for consideration in the ARTEXPRESS HSC Showcase.

Congratulations to:

Read about each student's work and the ideas behind their artistic practice in their own words below.

CHLOE CAVANAGH

Belanglo State Forest: The Silent Accomplice
Painting

How do we define the complicity of a bystander - one who watches silently, possessing a knowledge deeper than we can ever access? Belanglo State Forest: The Silent Accomplice investigates how landscapes become heavily burdened by the dark histories embedded within them. My work examines the uncertain agency of the environment when tied to human atrocity. Traditionally framed as a source of sublime wonder, a landscape attached to trauma is transformed into a silent witness, its identity forever altered by the events it has observed. Sites such as Belanglo State Forest embody an unsettling duality, where inherent natural beauty is eclipsed by a pervasive sense of dread. Across seven acrylic paintings, the series progressively shifts from luminous, mist-shrouded scenes into dense, nocturnal compositions. This deliberate manipulation of light obscures visual clarity, forcing the viewer to search through the gloom while heightening feelings of ambiguity and tension. The insertion of a contemporary telephone box disrupts the natural sequence, serving as a poignant symbol of failed communication and unanswered pleas.

QIRUN (AMANDA) HUANG

To Cast The Dice
Graphic Design

To Cast The Dice explores the tension between individual agency and the societal frameworks that shape the future paths and stereotypical outcomes available to us. Through a combination of 2D animation and a series of digital illustrations, a recurring dice motif represents the seemingly randomised outcomes of our decisions, while its limited faces symbolise the predetermined frameworks within which these choices are confined. Drawing on the literary references of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the work explores the societal pressure to conform to socially established ideals of success, stability and identity, and furthermore, the individual’s rebellion against it, to break beyond the imposed frameworks and reclaim the agency to create our own unknown path.

ELLA JEWELL

Detour from the Goldilocks Zone
Photomedia

The distance Earth orbits the Sun is ‘just right’ to sustain life. Scientists consider this distance as the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ or habitable zone. Detour from the Goldilocks Zone explores the consequences of the human race’s treatment of the Earth, proposing an alternative living space we may have to occupy if such behaviour continues. The impersonal nature of my subject’s identity strips away any distinctive features, leaving only a vague silhouette of a human figure, obscured by a protective raincoat rendered useless within the harsh, barren environment. The juxtaposition of urban street signs with the alien landscape suggests the incongruity of human behaviour in natural environments. This work ultimately examines and reflects on the effects of climate change and the consequences we may face as we continue to abuse the precious habitat we have been provided.

FLORENCE KNIGHT

Remembering when we wrote letters in the sand
Painting

My Body of Work is dedicated to my deceased father, compiling select items in a conceptual exploration of the suitcase transforming the inanimate into a cathartic vessel, both transient and sacred. These works serve as a depository for my memories, looking down into a collection of symbolic and personal motifs that represent myself as an artist while developing visual forms to reflect my Fijian heritage, as a source of connection to my father.

MATILDA (TILLY) LEISHMAN

Palimpsest - body as his witness
Drawing

My practice explores the relationship between memory, ageing, and mortality, reframing the human body not as a symbol of decline, but as a testament to a life lived. While contemporary society often resists aging as a visible reminder of memento mori, my work seeks to celebrate the skin as a living document of our human existence. At the heart of this exploration is my grandfather, a living embodiment of resilience and humility. More than a subject, his character forms the conceptual foundation of this Body of Work. Through hyperrealistic depictions, I examine his body as an archive where wrinkles, scars, and weathered skin serve as visual records of joy, hardship, and endurance. Complementing present-day portraits, I have integrated drawing compositions derived from old photographs that capture him in childhood, youth, and middle age. These inclusions invite a reflective dialogue between his past and present, exploring how his history accumulates into the resilient figure he is today. Ultimately, my work invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with mortality. Rather than confronting the passage of time through fear, I encourage an appreciation for the stories embedded in every imperfection. This series proposes that while aging inevitably brings us closer to death, it also brings us further into the richness of life, standing as evidence not of decline, but of a life fully lived.

JOSEPHINE (JOSIE) SIMMONDS

The Algorithm Presents: An illustrated History of Female Emotion
Drawing

The Algorithm Presents: An illustrated History of Female Emotion is a series of drawings etched on scratchboard that depict the female form appropriated from etchings dating from 1500 to the 1950s. Stripping each female subject of her context, I have either faithfully recreated her, inverted the image, or dismembered her entirely. I have recontextualised each figure, placing her within a quintessentially contemporary frame, one in which we see ourselves and each other reflected in daily life; that of the iPhone. Alongside each work is a corresponding reflective plaque: a single word to suggest the subject’s emotions, communicated through loaded, subjective language. Each work is presented in a layout inspired by Fiona Hall’s iconic Sardine Can series, creating an order of scientific classification and providing each subject with a moment of both solitude and solidarity. My examination of the female form and how it has been and continues to be represented throughout Western art history invites the audience to reflect on their own position within these complex histories.

ALIZIENNE WRIGHT

Psychosis
Drawing

This series Psychosis, is an exploration of contemporary anxiety, specifically rooted in my own childhood experience, being raised to constantly anticipate danger. My conceptual intention is to challenge the viewer's instinctual understanding of objects and their meaning, questioning the authenticity of good and evil, and confronting their own discomfort with their preconceived understanding of the imagery as it is presented. The use of charcoal is deliberate in this work, one of our oldest mediums; stretching back to prehistoric cave paintings, charcoal knows perhaps better than all of us the power and influence of imagery and established archetypes. The tonality is intentionally unsettling, designed to trigger the viewer's internal alarm systems, exposing how quickly we can allow fear to dictate our perception well before our conscious brains have made an assessment. This series critiques the anxiety of the world, a paradox of both its beauty and evil; a reflection of our own fears built up by the world that we live in, questioning whether the discomfort we feel comes from the objects themselves or the stories we project onto them.

Final selections for the ARTEXPRESS HSC Showcase will be announced by NESA later in the term.