Greeted by an unconventional concierge – specifically, a life-sized great white shark – the ANU School of Art and Design’s graduation exhibition is the epitome of all things weird, wonderful, and out of this world.

In every corner of the simple space, you’ll find intricately designed art from almost every discipline imaginable. Each artist’s idiosyncratic idea and artistic idiom is evident and intriguing, leaving you desperate to understand more behind the meanings.

Completing university at the tail end of a global pandemic is a niche experience almost exclusive to the graduating class of 2021. Lockdown and limitations moved this set of graduands’ exhibition into an online realm last year, snatching away their chance at a real-life artistic debut.

In turn, this gracious group of ANU students are not unaware of the privilege of hosting an in-person show, even if their ‘New Alumni’ exhibition arrived 12 months tardy.  

Bachelor of Arts with Honours graduate, 24-year-old Maddie Hepner’s work has evolved since 2020 in ways she may not have expected and says her university experience has been “quite an interesting ride”.

A Washington DC native, Hepner moved to Australia when she was 15, which somewhat inspired her final art piece. She says it’s particularly derived from having an “outsider looking in perspective” of the United States political climate, yet it being her homeland.

Composed of over 1,500 images forming a single confrontational video piece, the art plants seeds of doubt as to whether published content shapes history, or history shapes published content.

“Over the course of the year, I was investigating the concept of the American dream in relation to the US today,” Hepner says.

“Specifically, looking at alt-right online fringe communities and gathering data, collecting, and collating images, and then utilising the text and the images that I found to create twitter bots, and working with AI; basically, creating a large archive of what I’ve seen and discovered.”

Former US President Donald Trump was a central component to her piece, and a driving force within her work was trying to come to terms with her own personal feelings on his controversial presidency.

“I really wanted to unpack that and especially with Trump being in a position of power when he was… I just wanted to really figure it out myself in terms of how I felt about it but then also how people in online communities were trying to figure it out themselves,” she says.

“I definitely feel that, specifically when Trump came into his presidency, I was much more involved with American politics here. But it was a bit of an interesting and emotional ride to uncover within myself. I’m glad that I was here in a sense, but also upset because it’s still my country of residence in some sort of way.

“But the passion and drive that I have behind politics definitely informed both my work that I’ve made previously and what’s up on the walls here. Politics and the news are definitely a big part of my life, so it makes sense that it’s a big part of my practice as well.”

Describing the turmoil of attempting to finish a university degree during Covid as an arduous task, Hepner reveals the challenges have changed the course of her artistic style, “for bad or for good”.

“I feel with lockdowns and working from home, I was luckier in the sense because I was able to work solely from my computer and it also helped me to dive a bit deeper down into my screen because I had that time,” she says.

“But then that was really what I was doing for a majority of the day, so for good or for bad I was on my computer quite a lot. It was an interesting ride, especially with how my practice has evolved over my time being at the art school.

“I was already starting to shift more into digital media to begin with, so it was interesting to start to think about how my work would be perceived online, and how I could toy with that a bit more. But in saying that, it’s always great to have a physical exhibition as well.”

Plenty of sweat and tears were put into this exhibition by the young artists, and Hepner hopes people are excited to come and view their art.

“A lot of time and effort and energy has gone into this. I hope people understand that we are using the space to the best of our ability – it’s quite a large feat for the work to be up on the walls honestly,” she smiles. 

“We couldn’t have done it without each other, so it’s nice for all of our work to be displayed together. It’s not all the time that graduates have an ability to make work and then months later show it.”

Head of the School of Art and Design, Dr Beck Davis, says the “impact of the last two years cannot be underestimated” and encourages Canberrans to visit the exhibition, buy or commission work from the artists, and discover new talents.

New Alumni is on display at the School of Art and Design Gallery until Friday 1 July; anu.edu.au/events

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