Each year, as part of their Season of Excellence, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) hosts Top Arts at the National Gallery of Victoria. In its thirtieth year this year, the Top Arts exhibition showcases the most outstanding artworks from talented young artists in Victoria. Students from across the state who have studied Units 3 and 4 VCE Art Making and Exhibiting or VCE Art Creative Practice can apply.
We are delighted to share that Year 12 Grammarian Elektra Katsalidis has been selected, from a pool of more than 1,200 applicants, to have her artwork showcased alongside just 44 other works.
Elektra submitted two bodies of work from her Units 3 and 4 study of VCE Art Making and Exhibiting, both of which were shortlisted. Her artwork entitled ‘Deconstructed Cabinet of Curiosities’ – that comprises a large sculpture, two large-scale charcoal portraits, and a series of smaller conceptual experiments – was selected for the Top Arts showcase (with some omissions due to space constraints).
Elektra’s ‘Deconstructed Cabinet of Curiosities’ “[investigates] the impact of colonialism on non-Indigenous women and First Nations people in Australia, and the role art spaces play in perpetuating their oppression.” The elements of Elektra’s artwork “work [together] to challenge the depiction of these marginalised groups within colonial spaces, namely cabinets of curiosities and museum collections which are symbols of European colonisation…” Elektra says she was “compelled to contemplate [her] own ancestry and position as a person living in a country founded on colonialism” after listening to a David Marr interview with The Guardian, for the release of his book Killing for Country. This prompted her to consider her “responsibility to contribute to truth-telling initiatives.”
As part of her research and conception of her artwork, Elektra investigated significant primary and secondary source material, interviewed First Nations activists including Uncle Robbie Thorpe, explored media, including traditional media, essays, colonial and modern artworks and their artists’ stories. Her extensive research helped inform the theoretical development of her ideas and curation of her pieces into a cohesive body of work of varied media and artistic techniques.
Below is a quote from Elektra’s essay, which accompanied her submission. To read more about Elektra’s inspiration for and examination of her subject matter and ideas, visit her website here or Instagram page here.
“I intended to challenge the viewer’s perception of traditional exhibitions and to encourage discussion regarding ongoing violence towards marginalised groups in Australia.”
We congratulate Elektra on this fantastic achievement and are very much looking forward to the opening of the 2025 Top Arts showcase. The exhibition is open from 14 March to 20 July at the Ground Level, NGV Design Studio in the Ian Potter Centre at the National Gallery of Victoria. Tickets are free and all are welcome.
Additionally, Elektra’s two large-scale charcoal portraits (above and below) have been hung at the Cellar Door at Mount Monument Winery in Romsey.
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Elektra was also the artist behind the beautiful front cover of the 2024 edition of The Anderson (our School Magazine) and contributed to the design of the overall edition alongside her peers as a member of the 2024 Anderson Editing Committee.
