Fostering affordable community access to excellence in visual art, education & culture.  Art courses for adults at the RAVA studios  Rawlinson Ave, West Wollongong.

 

A core fundamental tertiary level fine art course fusing elements of applied theory & Compositional principles to drawing painting sculpture photography & printmaking.
  

WE OFFER YOU:

• Classes that are suitable for adults of ALL ability ranges

• A fully individualized and mentored course assessment and critical analysis of your artwork prior to enrollment

• Accelerated development of style self-expression and creativity

• Flexible CROSS-DISCIPLINARY approach    

• Demonstration of fundamental techniques and processes          

• Comprehensive range of materials and subject matter    

• Comprehensive documentation and assessment / feedback of your artwork

• Highly qualified & Experienced Teachers

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 The Wollongong Art School (RAVA) - A Brief History

 

“No one questions the fact that verbal language has to be learned, but the commonplaceness of visual experience betrays art; people tend to assume that, because they can see, they can see art.” -Anne Truitt

 

 

The Wollongong Art Schools (RAVA) teaching philosophy has developed within the ethos of studio based ‘hands on’ training backed by a fully integrated history/theory syllabus which maintains that a command of compositional vocabulary is at the heart of ‘seeing’ and expressing through visual language.

The current Wollongong Art School developed out of the Illawarra Independent Arts Group (IIAG) which in 2013, through the support of Wollongong Art Gallery’s Program Director John Monteleone was given access to the gallery’s studio and lecture facilities. It was in this supportive environment that we undertook teaching two classes a week while also initiating the development of a syllabus for an interdisciplinary teaching program.

By 2014 due to an increase in student numbers the need for space and studio access hours beyond what the Gallery was able to provide led to the search for new facilities. We approached the then Shadow Minister for Education Ryan Park M.P and who after discussions regarding our cultural, charitable and educational aims and objectives agreed to become our patron and lent his support in clearing the way for negotiations for the leasing from TAFE of our current purpose built E Block art studios.

Our registration with the Australian Charities and not -for- profits Commission (ACNC) as an educational and cultural charity resulted in the formation of the Regional Association for Visual Arts Education and Culture Inc. (RAVA), the umbrella organization under which the Wollongong Art School now operates.

 We are now able to facilitate a number of community art activities including classes in specific subjects along with untutored studio access arrangements for artist’s groups.

Our primarily activities centre around a flexible access to studio and tutored programs designed for the individual rather than set classes. These programs are suitable for motivated students whether beginners or more experienced and operate at levels equivalent to diploma and advanced diploma levels and above. It is our hope to soon be able to offer accredited qualifications to satisfy our major objective of affording our students direct articulation to degree level studies with RTO should they wish to do soon.

Over the past four years our annual end of year exhibitions has evidenced the high standard of our students work across all our programmes whether they be RAVA syllabus course, single subject classes or our studio access artist’s groups who have continued their post art college activities and are a welcome and vibrant addition to our studio life.

 

Ivor Fabok. November 2018

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THE RAVA COURSE : AN OVERVIEW

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Practice at this level is underpinned by application of art theory and history, the ability to engage in critical discourse and to debate one’s own work and the work of others.

Visual artists may work in their own practice, or a wide range of contexts across the arts, government or commercial organisations and also bring visual arts perspective to areas such as business, community services and science.”

 

   We have developed the RAVA course to parallel the above outcomes of the National Diploma and Advanced Diploma of Visual Art Courses

Our course specifically fosters and accelerates the development of creative autonomy in our students and the ability and awareness to contextualise their own work with appropriate contemporary and historical examples

Our educational philosophy takes the best of the practical studio approach historically favoured by art colleges and the more theoretical approach favoured by universities and creates a hybrid -a symbiotic, mutually enhancing relationship between their respective course elements – creating a third more effective way to accelerate the delivery of the above outcomes.

This evolutionary third way has also demanded a significant re-design and

 development in course architecture, its elements, emphasis, sequence and delivery with a greater use of digital processes – a more complete integration between art history, theory and studio disciplines, and, most importantly, considerably more emphasis on the primacy of composition, visual language and literacy, utilising specific sources and techniques which have evolved and been refined over the last few years of our operation

The quality of the student work on this website illustrates, I think, both their abilities and the effectiveness of the application of this particular methodology.

 

Ron Mathers

November 2018