Art Education and Visual Literacy: Putting Theory into Practice

This case study examined four Australian Year 12 students’ use of visual literacy to create bodies of artwork. They used the Australian literacy constructs, the frames – subjective, structural, cultural, and postmodern, and the conceptual framework – artwork, artist, world, and audience, to inform their thinking. The students used visual literacy differently to (a) read/decoded/interpreted visual statements, (b) wrote/encoded/created visual statements, in, following the art teacher’s graphic and written prompts (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011). Three students (c) thought visually and deliberately planned artwork to speak to an audience, using visual process diaries (VPDs) and artists’ statements that combined images and texts. The study concluded (1) Teaching visual literacy skills is essential. (2) Visual literacy skills take time to develop. (3) Visual literacy skills involve metacognition. (4) Conveying visual messages through artforms is best accomplished with developed skills in the medium or artform. (5) Visual literacy skills benefit from students’ research, analysis, and interpretation of artworks to increase critical understanding. Visual literacy is culturally situated. (6) Visual literacy skills involve an awareness of audiences and a need to communicate ideas. (7) The conceptual framework, rather than the frames, provided a point of dialogue and focus within VPDs, artwork, and writing.