Demand is strong for visual arts qualifications in Victoria, at least it is at the Australian Academy of Design in Port Melbourne that has opened up enrolments for an additional Bachelor of Design Arts class in 2013 to accommodate students who want to join its popular Visual Arts major program at the Ingles Street campus.
Some of that popularity can be put down to the Visual Arts core faculty of program co-ordinator Michelle Mantsio, program leader Brigit Heller and tutors Godwin Bradbeer and Michael Peck, established and practising artists all of them. Bradbeer won the Dobell Prize for Drawing in 1998 and Peck was a finalist for the same prize in 2010 and a finalist for the Archibald Prize in 2012. Michelle Mantsio’s most recent solo exhibition was a video installation in 2012 called Lagniappe II: Knockout Artist (transference). Brigit Heller also had a show in 2012, a series of sculptural forms called I don’t want to drown at MARS Gallery in Port Melbourne.
