A POWERFUL set of drawings by The Armidale School’s Jack Tizzard of young children dressed in historical militaristic costumes has been nominated for inclusion in ARTEXPRESS, the statewide showcase of HSC Visual Arts. Jack’s haunting works, called The Precipice were inspired by a Facebook video of a young boy dazed in the back of an ambulance bleeding from a cut after an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria. “It made me stop – what is this kid’s life going to be like? Will it be drenched in the blood of conflict, or eclipsed by amazing moments of peace and understanding? Standing on the edge of a precipice… my purpose is to simply capture them before they fall.” His teacher Ian McPherson said Jack has masterfully rendered the young people and in the tiny details of expression and posture there is an absolute sense of them as authentic living children. “Jack creates a tension between these young people and the ominous conflict in their futures that is deeply provoking,” he said. Meanwhile classmate Andrew Knight has been nominated for Encore, the statewide HSC Music Showcase at the Sydney Opera House next year. Andrew has also been selected for the regional Bravissimo concert at Port Macquarie for which the talents of classmate Renee Collins were also recognised, as a reserve performer.
(i) Jack Tizzard at work on one of his drawings for The Precipice, which has been nominated for inclusion in the HSC Visual Arts showcase ARTEXPRESS.
(ii) Two of the works
