← Visual Arts syllabus

SAVisual Arts

Assessment Type 1: Folio

7 dot points across 7 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do I analyse artists, artworks, and their contexts to inform my own folio?

Analyse artists, artworks, and the contexts in which they were made, and apply those insights to your own visual development.
How to analyse practitioners, their artworks, and the cultural, historical and social contexts behind them, and how to feed that analysis back into your own folio development.
6 min answer →

How do I study art styles and movements without just copying them?

Investigate art styles and movements, understand their visual logic, and redirect their strategies through your own work.
How to investigate art styles and movements in the Folio, understanding the visual logic and aims behind a style rather than copying its surface, and redirecting that logic through your own sources and concept.
6 min answer →

How do I explore and document media, techniques, and processes effectively in my folio?

Explore a range of media, techniques, and processes, and document skill development and material decisions in the folio.
How to trial and document media, techniques and processes in the Folio so that material decisions are evidence-based and skill development is visible to assessors.
6 min answer →

How do I use the visual elements and design principles to analyse an artwork closely?

Use the visual elements and design principles as a vocabulary for formal analysis, explaining how an artwork creates its effects.
How to run a formal visual analysis using the art elements and design principles, explaining how an artwork produces its effects so your folio analysis is evidenced rather than vague.
6 min answer →

How do I gather sources of inspiration and develop a personal visual language in my folio?

Document sources of inspiration and use exploration and experimentation to develop a distinctive personal visual language.
How to gather and document sources of inspiration in the Folio, and how exploration and experimentation build a personal visual language that feeds directly into your resolved practical work.
6 min answer →

How do I understand and use the cultural, historical, social and personal contexts of art?

Investigate the cultural, historical, social, and personal contexts that shape artworks and use them to inform your inquiry.
How to investigate the cultural, historical, social and personal contexts that shape artworks, and use context as an explanatory tool that changes how you read a work rather than as background decoration.
6 min answer →

How do I use visual thinking and investigation to develop ideas across my folio?

Use visual thinking and investigation to generate, test, and refine ideas and concepts as your folio develops.
How to use visual thinking and ongoing investigation to generate, test and refine ideas in the Folio, so your development reads as genuine inquiry rather than a tidy sequence of finished pieces.
6 min answer →