Only two of the five graduate exhibitions presented by Curtin University's School of Art are on campus, the others are dispersed to various galleries around Perth and Fremantle.

STUDIO 392 is an exhibition of works by undergraduate student throughout the art school.  As with most end of year tertiary art school displays, there are examples of creative concepts and technical skills, although not always found together in one exhibit.  The overall message received from this eclectic exhibition is that making art is making a comeback.  Post Modernism with its verbal hyperbole may still hold sway in some enclaves but here, thankfully, the viewer needs no interpreter to appreciate many of the exhibits

For example Sara Larsen is one artist whose work speaks intelligibly in its own visual language.  This artist knows how to draw, use her medium and compose a painting very well thus assuring all viewers easy access to her work.  Ann Radovich can draw and paint well too, which leaves us to wonder why she hides her ability behind kitschy collage and cut-outs.

Displays of ceramic and glass works, with their functional and sculptural properties, always proved fascinating viewing.  Warrick Palmateer's large ceramic roundels ignite the imagination, engage the mind and invite tactile inspection.  Like fossilized segments of seashore, they hold the past and future in a timeless fusion of earth and sea.  Many of the glass exhibits suggest experimentation and exploration with the medium while one artist, Anne Davidson, displays skill, sophistication and elegance in her work.

The sculpture is disappointing.  With the exception of Julie Wilson-Foster's enchanting Behind the Garden Wall, where white plastic milk bottles are recycled into a shrub, vine and water lilies, one can't help thinking an installation is an easy option for those who can neither carve, cast nor model a 3D construction.

CURT, in the new John Curtin Gallery, is the exhibition of work by postgraduates.  The professional presentation enhances those exhibits that are well conceived and constructed but cannot enliven the few works of dubious concept or poor ability.  Paul Orange's feeble attempt at turning unwanted paint skin into art fails dismally and 100 Boxes by Paul Hinchcliffe offers no intellectual stimulation.

Meanwhile the vibrant mixed media works by Isador Mack Sau Lan invite and intrigue with their rich colour and ambiguity of subject and Paul Gamblin's interactive exhibit Parallel opens the mind to a whole new way of defining, making and exhibiting art.  But when it comes to objectifying pure physical and metaphysical beauty, one cannot go past the perfection seen in the metal balls encased in delicate silver circles exhibited by Phuvanart (Noi) Rattanarungsikul.

Most impressive is Lorenna Grant's TURTLE RUSH, a site specific environmental rehabilitation project located in Midland.  The project is well represented in the exhibition with excellent site inspired drawings and sculptures and a comprehensive catalogue.  Here is an example of Environmental Art that supersedes trendy rhetoric and Public Art that goes well beyond erecting a structure that designates ownership of a site.  This is a resculpting of the Earth that allows one aspect of it to re-establish its function, renew its ecological balance, reinstate its validity and return to the community.  The project is deserving of its own exhibition, complete with concept drawings, photo documentation of the  ongoing group activity and informative lectures.  Here is an example of art serving life, not just reflecting it ills or talking about it in Post Modernist jargon.