Media releases

Visual arts students graduating from Federation University’s Arts Academy will experience the best of both worlds with their End of Year Exhibition (EYE) taking place online and in galleries.

EYE is usually held at the Ballarat Mining Exchange and the Switchback Gallery at the University’s Gippsland Campus, but COVID-19 restrictions have forced this year’s event to commence online before branching out into physical gallery exhibitions.

The virtual exhibition will be launched at this link by Federation University Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Duncan Bentley at 6.00pm on Wednesday, 16 December.

Awards to students will be announced during the launch.

The End of Year Exhibition has been held for more than a decade and provides valuable impetus to the careers of the Arts Academy’s students. The event usually runs for a week in November.

This time, however, EYE can be viewed at this link until mid-April 2021. The online event will overlap towards the end with physical exhibitions at the Ballarat Post Office Gallery and the Switchback Gallery.

Presented using specialised Kunstmatrix software, the online event gives students the ability to share their work more widely than in a traditional on-site exhibition.

Exhibitors this year include graduating students from Bachelor of Visual Arts, Bachelor of Communication Design, Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours), and Advanced Diploma of Graphic Design from Federation University’s Ballarat campuses and Bachelor of Fine Arts students from Federation’s Gippsland Campus.

Works featured in EYE cover a range of media, including painting, drawing, ceramics, digital art, graphic design, printmaking and installation.

Further details are available on the Federation University website.

Quotes attributable to Director of the Arts Academy, Associate Professor Rick Chew

“Our End of Year Exhibitions are an opportunity to showcase the work of our graduating Visual Arts students across five programs. Given the challenges of 2020, the range and depth of work that has been produced is outstanding.”

“We are proud to be hosting our exhibitions this year both in virtual galleries hosted by Kunstmatrix and additionally in the new year through face-to-face exhibitions at our galleries in Ballarat and Gippsland.”

Picture: 'There Was a Time' by Christine Bourchier