School Holiday Workshops (6–18 YEARS)

14–18 and 21–25 JAN
15–18 and 23–24 APR
08–12 and 15–19 JUL
30 SEP until 4 OCT
8–11 OCT

9.30 am–4:00 pm daily
$130 per day and $550 for five-day programs unless otherwise specified

Our Mini-Makers program offers students aged 6–8 an opportunity to start their art-making journey using a variety of different art-making materials and techniques. Future Makers presents workshops for students aged 9–12 to build on their ideas and understanding of the art world. High School workshops enable students aged 13–18 to extend and challenge their knowledge,skills and understanding of art-making through in-depth conceptual and technical study. For more information about programs and to book, please visit:

School Holiday Programs

Lunchtime Lecture: Arthur Boyd Landscape of the Soul
Barry Pearce exhibition Curator discusses Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul As part of NAS Summer School, Week One.

Landscape of the Soul is a new exhibition exploring the Australian landscape through the complex genius of Arthur Boyd.  From light-filled early landscapes to tormented figures in the bush, Boyd’s paintings, prints, drawings and other items in this exhibition present an inner landscape and an artist’s creative odyssey. Exhibition curator Barry Pearce, Emeritus Curator of Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales talks about Boyd’s uneasy relationship with the Australian landscape. Free entry.

Lunchtime Lecture: Arthur Boyd Landscape of the Soul
Deborah Ely CEO of Bundanon Trust discusses Bundanon Trust As part of NAS Summer School, Week One.

Bundanon Trust is a unique organisation in Australia. Former home of painter Arthur Boyd, and recognised as an incubator for contemporary art through its extensive, multi-disciplinary, artist in residence program, and as a platform for research into art and science collaborations, environmental innovation and children’s creative education. This talk will explore the history of artists’ engagement with the site and the role the Shoalhaven landscape has played in inspiring the development of new work and shaping conversations about the role of art and artists in the national identity. Deborah Ely AM is the Chief Executive Officer of Bundanon Trust. Free entry.

Lunchtime Lecture: Dr Maryanne Coutts
Dr Maryanne Coutts Head of Drawing at the National Art School discusses her current project, Dress Code As part of NAS Summer School, Week One.

Dr Maryanne Coutts’ artwork is an exploration of the relationship between drawing and time, based in a lively drawing practice that ranges from watercolour to animation. Each day since 2013 she has made a drawing in response to what she wears every day, and in this talk she discusses this project Dress Code. She writes “Dress Code is a project which attempts to harness the ways that the days continue to follow each other, one after the other; unstoppable. It is a journal of what I wear each day – not in a ‘realistic’ or documentary way – but a fluid emotional extension of the creative activity of getting dressed in the morning; each morning, every morning.” Dr Coutts is Head of Drawing at the National Art School and a lecturer at Summer School.

Image: Maryanne Coutts Dress Code, 8 January, 2016. Courtesy the artist

Lunchtime Lecture: Kim Spooner

NAS lecturer and artist Kim Spooner presents an engaging talk about the challenges of being an artist in today’s art world, demands of contemporary life, the shifts in aesthetic and the place of art in our lives. These important topics give rise to questions that impact on the nature of the art we make – it’s relevance in terms of subject and media, as well as the audience to whom we communicate. Kim refers to her own practice as an established artist and arts educator, including how her work has shifted with these demands while maintaining the integrity of her personal view. She presents the case that artists have always looked within themselves as well as to other artists for common threads that mingle and re-emerge as “new”. Kim is a lecturer in both Summer Schools Week One and Two.

Image: Kim Spooner, Long After Magritte, 2018, charcoal on Saunders cotton paper, courtesy of the artist