The Year 11 & 12 art students had the opportunity to visit Curtin University for a Fine Art Conference on campus last week. They first had a lecture from Dr Keiran Broadhurst on analysing artworks and some tips for art exam prep. They then had a life drawing workshop with Di Cubbit, and still life painting workshop with Tori Benz in the University studios. It was a great opportunity for the boys to learn some new skills and experience University life.

We enjoyed some ogre-sized fun in the JS last week with the production of Shrek the Musical. What an amazing show it was! While some of the actors were a bit green (😜) the Junior School cast shone in the McAppion Theatre to a full house across three nights. Well done to all the staff and students involved in what was a spectacular show.

Aquinas Art, Media, Design & Technology Exhibition 2022

Thank you to everyone who participated in and visited this year's exhibition. We saw a wide range of work from Year 7 - 12 students in Visual arts, Media, Design, Woodwork and Metalwork. The graduating Year 12 students were able to see their work exhibited alongside their peers. Congratulations to all the students who won awards and to all the students who put in the time and effort to create some amazing and engaging work. We have some truly talented students!

The winner of the people choice award this year goes to Ben King in Year 11.5 for his Semester One work. Congratulations Ben!

A huge thank you to all staff and students who helped make this year's exhibition possible. It is a huge undertaking and we appreciate all the support in making such a fun night possible.

At the end of Week 5 Term 4, the Visual Arts ATAR students had the opportunity to attend an artist workshop incursion with well known WA artist Andy Quilty. Andy has been highly engaged and active in the art community in WA for a number of years now and is a regular lecturer at the University of Western Australia, where he teaches several units in the Fine Arts Major.

The Year 11 and 12 Art students participated in a three hour workshop where they built up their drawing and observation skills. They had to loosen up in order to discover new and creative ways of drawing and mark making. This was a great experience for the students leading into their projects for next year.

To check out Andy's current exhibitions take a look at his website for more info.

Please take the time to read the article by Dashiell van Ingen about the Year 8 students who performed at the recent Catholic Performing Arts festival. To have a play written with great depth and a powerful message by one of our Year 8 students is outstanding. Well done to all the boys involved.

Michael Dempsey
Head of Middle School

Performing is not only a way to express yourself, but make known a message; something you are passionate about and wish to change; and this was a driving force for the creation of our short play, based on the song ‘Wayfaring stranger’, by Jos Slovick.

As part of year eight drama, we have been exploring the topic of World War One, and the atrocities that occurred, as well as the hardships people had to face. We were tasked to create a short play about the war, and as a small group, we wrote about a small family, with only their father with them. His two sons had to be sent to the war, and experience the hardships and trauma the war brought. After a year of fighting, only one of the sons returned.

As for the whole experience, it was truly a gift to be able to perform at the Catholic Performing Arts Festival, but what made it truly special was to be able to perform your own creation, as well as inform people of the injustices in the world and how we can make a change. It was an amazing journey to work with the teachers for the drama unit, Mr Mark McAndrew, Mrs Emma Leopardi, and especially Mrs Sonja Vaswani, who helped all the actors put together a play in the short amount of time we had. And it was amazing to share this experience with amazing actors also in year eight. Although this wasn’t our first time performing in front of an audience, it was as exhilarating as any other performance we’ve ever been in.

Overall, this was an amazing experience. To be able to choreograph and act in a play with such amazing actors truly was a gift, and an experience we’ll never forget.

Dashiell van Ingen and Thomas O’Neill

This has been a production season like no other and when recognising the hard work of this amazing cast, the students who so willingly understudied throughout the rehearsal process should be congratulated and acknowledged. Without the assurance of playing those roles in performances, students enthusiastically volunteered to cover unavoidable absences to ensure we have a production to share with you today – my sincerest thanks to a cast that kept this show going. The ‘Bugsy Malone’ rehearsal season had been about a spirit of inclusiveness and a strong team culture towards a common goal. The cast members were generous, kind, thoughtful and hard-working during a season that fluctuated with uncertainty and an ever-changing rehearsal environment.

There are many parents, colleagues and theatre professionals who assisted in putting this show together – thank you to all who supported our 2022 Aquinas College Production. I am extremely appreciative to have worked with an incredibly talented staff and student Creative Team, who’s vision and ideas were the driving strength behind every scene, moment, song, and choreographed movement within the show. Their combined student-centred approach and attention to detail is what has made this experience dynamic and worthwhile. I’d like to especially thank our Musical Director, Mr Chris McMillan, who’s expertise and outstanding musicianship have raised the calibre of this production to a standard worthy of the Heath Ledger Theatre.

‘Bugsy Malone’ is a musical that has everything – fun songs, memorable characters, and a quirky script. It is a musical that somehow connects so well with young actors. We hope you enjoyed it!

Sonja Vaswani
Director

This production marked the beginning of another chapter in the College’s long-standing history of musical theatre productions, and we welcomed Mrs Sonja Vaswani to the Arts team at Aquinas in the role of Director.

Beginning the year in the grips of a pandemic made the rehearsal process for this show a challenge. Our students rehearsed outdoors in small groups in the early stages. They covered each other’s roles when some were in isolation and learnt their parts online where necessary, displaying admirable versatility and persistence. Whilst many schools made the decision to cancel their show for this year, we are proud to have persevered and to have finally arrive at the point of production at the incredible State Theatre.

Our admiration and thanks to all students in the cast and their families for being prepared to work with us in these unusual times. My thanks also to the incredibly talented staff who so willingly gave their time and expertise.

Musically, the preparation for our show was interesting. When Alan Parker decided to direct Bugsy Malone for film in 1976 using child actors, many of the young stars cast then were younger than most of our cast members are. Consequently, many of the resulting recordings of the show feature children’s voices. Our challenge was to produce a more mature sound than the original recordings – another task which was willingly accepted by our students! We hope you enjoyed their efforts in bringing ‘Bugsy Malone’ to life.

Chris McMillan
Music Director

Recently we had the pleasure of having local artist Jenny Davies hold several portrait workshops with our Senior School art students. Jenny is a Lester Portrait Prize finalist and passionate about all things art. She worked with the students on creating a portrait from beginning to end, focusing on things like compositional techniques, drawing from life and photographs, recognising tonal value in images and how to translate that into a painting, as well as workshopping colour theory. All these skills are essential for the students to better develop their visual language, and how they progress in the art program. They had a great time and produced the beginnings of some wonderful artworks.

On Monday 9 May 2022, Year 11 and 12 ATAR Visual Arts students visited the Art Gallery of WA and checked out this year’s amazing PULSE perspectives exhibition, which showcases about 50 select year 12 art students from WA from last year. The students then had an amazing tour through some of the AGWA collection and discussed critical thinking in relation to visual art. After this, they hit the streets and had a tour of Perth’s street art, and discovered all of the public art available in the city. Thank you so much to Jenny and Adie who were their tour guides for the day!

Congratulations to all the students who entered this years photography competition. The theme this year was “A moment in time”, and everyone interpreted this in their own way to produce some amazing photographs. Official awards will be handed out at the formal awards ceremony at the end of the year.

The winners are:

First place: David Scott Year 11 for his photograph ‘Stadium at Capacity’

Second Place: Logan Nixon Year 8 for his photograph ‘Sunset 1’

Third Place: Marcus Taylor Year 12 for his photograph ‘Pinkys’

Highly Commended: Noah Myers Year 7 for his photograph ‘Restful Repose’

Peoples Choice Award: Akashan & Anoshan Ganapathipillai for their photograph ‘Untitled 1’