Abstraction through Representation

Develop and refine your skills in abstraction using acrylic paints through the exploration of artistic techniques including style, colour and composition. Christine Dean will guide you through a range of approaches to painting resulting in abstract works that are developed out of an engagement with representational imagery.



Commencing with the selection of photographic images, for example landscape, figures, buildings, still life or portraiture, these images will be interpreted through drawing, erasure, tracing and collage techniques. From these initial studies students are encouraged to produce larger and more visually complex paintings. This will be achieved by developing painting techniques, starting out with underpainting and then building up surfaces through layering.



Throughout the course Christine gives individual tuition to assist with the process of building confidence in painting techniques and decision making resulting in the completion of larger scale and increasingly resolved paintings that capture your own artistic style. Christine will encourage students to discover their own personal style and approaches to developing abstract images.

* NAS Short Courses are open to students of ages 16 years and over. The NAS Art Club is open to students from ages 15 years and over.

* Drawing and painting short courses may be held in upstairs studios. If access to stairs is not suitable, please contact us at short.courses@nas.edu.au

* What to bring? Please refer to the list of required materials in the Art Materials field below.

Students must supply their own art materials, please refer to the list below.

• Acrylic paints are essential; please include a wide range of colours. Any brand is acceptable, and additional supplies are available at Parkers shop on the NAS campus.
• Gesso (essential) 500ml or 1litre, gesso can be used as glue
• PVA or craft glue
• Acrylic painting mediums, gloss medium and varnish will be particularly useful
• Notebook or sketchbook
• Drawing media including pencil, charcoal and crayons
• A wide range of brushes from house painting to fine tipped brushes with square, round and angled heads
• Printed images e.g. from magazines, old books, photographs etc
• Old rags
• Plastic food containers (medium size)
• Palette for mixing paint eg. disposable paper palettes, paper plates
• Disposable plastic containers and tubs
• Palette knife for mixing and applying paint to surfaces
• Scissors
• Masking tape
• Surfaces to work on, stretched canvas, canvas board, cardboard, suggested size 30 cm to 80 cm. Rigid surfaces are recommended for mixed media
• Enclosed footwear is essential in all studios on campus. 

The teacher will advise on additional materials as the course progresses. Art materials can be purchased at Parkers Art Supplies on campus at NAS.

Christine Dean is an artist, educator and writer who has been exhibiting since 1988. From the early 1990s she has exhibited in many LGBTQIA+ exhibitions including Juice, AGNSW 1997; The Oscar Wilde Reading Group, Raw Nerve Gallery 1998; Bent Western, Blacktown Arts Centre 2008; From Straight to Gay and back again, Alaska Projects 2015; Can’t Touch This Verge Gallery 2017; 40 Years of Queer Art, Comber Street Studios 2018; The Party, UNSW Art & Design Galleries and Braving Time, NAS Gallery 2023. In 1986 Christine completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney majoring in Fine Arts, a Diploma in Secondary Art Education from Sydney Teachers College in 1989, a Graduate Diploma in Painting, Sydney College of the Arts in 1990, a Master of Fine Arts, University of NSW in 2003 and a PhD from the University of NSW in 2010. In 2000 she was awarded a Pollock-Krasner fellowship and in 2001 undertook a residency at the 18th Street Arts Centre, Los Angeles as part of an Australia Council research grant. The focus of Christine’s art practice has been developing a relationship between abstraction and text. Much of the text included is both poetic and political. The painting Drag Queen, 2015 belongs to a series produced while living in Kings Cross. The text included is a quote from an interview conducted by Roberta Perkins that was published in her 1983 book the Drag Queen Scene and the shimmering colours and design of the painting visualize the decor of nightclubs from the era.