Art

HoD Art: Mr JL Manuel


The arts are powerful forms of expression that recognise, value, and contribute to the unique bicultural and multicultural character of Aotearoa New Zealand, enriching the lives of all New Zealanders. The arts have their own distinct languages that use both verbal and non-verbal conventions, mediated by selected processes and technologies. 

Through engaging in the visual arts, students learn how to discern, participate in, and celebrate their own and others’ visual worlds. Visual arts learning begins with children’s curiosity and delight in their senses and stories and extends to communication of complex ideas and concepts. An understanding of Māori visual culture is achieved through exploration of Māori contexts. The arts of European, Pasifika, Asian, and other cultures add significant dimensions to New Zealand visual culture.

In visual arts education, students develop visual literacy and aesthetic awareness as they manipulate and transform visual, tactile, and spatial ideas to solve problems. They explore experiences, stories, abstract concepts, social issues, and needs, both individually and collaboratively. They experiment with materials, using processes and conventions to develop their visual enquiries and create both static and time-based art works. They view art works, bringing their own experiences, sharing their responses, and generating multiple interpretations. Their meaning making is further informed by investigation of the contexts in which art works are created, used, and valued. As they develop their visual literacy, students are able to engage with a wider range of art experiences in increasingly complex and conscious ways.

The visual arts develop students’ conceptual thinking within a range of practices across drawing, sculpture, design, painting, printmaking, photography, and moving image. Art history may include a study of theories of the arts, architecture, and design. Theoretical investigations also inform practical enquiry. Opportunities to explore and communicate in the visual arts continue to expand as technologies and multi-disciplinary practices evolve.

Animator, Artist, Photographer, Artistic Director, Teaching, Illustrator, Product Design, Fashion Design, Textiles, Architect, Interior Design, Video Game Design, Web Design, Film and Video Editor, advertising art director, comic book creator, graphic artist, primary teacher, advertising commercial director, comic strip artist, graphic designer, print maker, advertising copy writer, computer graphics designer, greeting card designer, properties artist, advertising creative director, conservator, guide, publicity director, advertising illustrator, corporate designer, hair stylist, puppet maker, advertising photographer, costume designer, haute couturier, renderer, aerial photographer, court artist, illustration agent, researcher, animation director, crafts artisan, illustrator-freelance, restorer, animator (digital/traditional), creative director-advertising, industrial designer, salesperson, antique restorer, curator, industrial photographer, scenic designer, architect, cutter & editor, interior decorator,