Creative concepts and interesting themes such as fantasy worlds and self-discovery are explored as part of the current art exhibition on display at Arts Space Wodonga.
They are the work of Year 12 graduating art students in the Murray region.
Albury High School student Mackenna Carol, 18, centred her artwork on the theme of life values and self-discovery after being inspired by a trip to Cambodia in 2006 with World Challenge.
Reflecting on photos she had taken of Cambodian children, she observed that these children had fewer material possessions but seemed happier than many children in our society.
"I wanted to express what I learnt when I went there and the simplicities of life and what really makes a person happy," she said.
"In Cambodia I met lots of kids and played with them and they were so happy with so little and it was a really big experience for me at learning what truly makes me happy.
"Then I came home and I realised the westernisation of the world that I am living in and the difference, so I wanted to show that in my work.
"I tried to show that through juxtaposing the plywood and the perspex, with the perspex representing the western world and the plywood would be the raw Cambodian society."
Another student Adelaide Lloyd Thwaites, 18, from Wodonga Senior Secondary College was intrigued by the theme of fantasy worlds and the ways in which people interact with their world and each other.
Her artworks - Wire and Bone and Isolate Ascension - integrate organic life and explore the relationships between people and place and how they evolve over time.
"My first piece which is the computer hand is called Wire and Bone and it compares familiar and foreign together, so old computer pieces that you might recognise as cords from the back of a tv or circuits in a modem for the internet," she said.
"I turned that into a little stage for a human hand but it's sort of an android sort of human."
Adelaide's love of sci-fi shines through with this artwork.
"I love sci-fi so I thought what better way to show that," she said.
"My grandpa collects a lot of old computer stuff and had an entire garage full of stuff and I asked to raid his garage and we went in together and collected a big box of stuff."
Her second piece, Isolate Ascension, shows the relationship between man and nature
"I wanted to show how it can work together in harmony and it's not one taking over the other but working as a pair and also with the title, Isolate Ascension, it's a very isolating feel to be boxed in a little floating island set but you can see the community would be close-knit so it's still a very juxtaposing theme but a little more subtle this time," she said.
The exhibition includes works featuring pencil, paint, sculpture and even plant life in a diverse and eclectic grouping of works.
For many it is the first time their work is displayed publicly as an object of value, rather than the result of an assessment task.
The vibrant and diverse artworks were drawn from:
- Albury High School;
- Catholic College Wodonga;
- James Fallon High School;
- Murray High School;
- The Scots School Albury;
- Victory Lutheran College;
- Wodonga Senior Secondary College;
- Xavier High School;
- Beechworth Secondary College;
- Tallangatta Secondary College;
- Mt Beauty High School; and,
- Trinity Anglican College.
The exhibition is on display until January 26.