The Church of Art School Awaits
Come pray at the altar of the It-Girl, be baptised in aesthetics, and drown in an identity of your own creation…
The first time I walked into art school I didn’t see the interiors of a university – I saw the heart of a church.
I settled into the pews among my fellow believers as Bibles labelled ‘project briefs’ were passed around. The windows were stained glass, telling stories of our Makers. I saw the birth of Yves Saint Laurent in Algeria and the tragic death of Diane Arbus in New York. But as I approached my canvas, ready to worship, I was confronted with something unforeseen — my own reflection.
Art / Olive Bartlett-Mowat
In art school, your identity can matter just as much — if not more — than your work. The pressure starting out here is paramount. On my first day, I wore a $500 see-through Jean Paul Gaultier t-shirt. I didn’t bring a pen. Awkward whispered introductions and quick glares of aesthetic judgements echoed and bounced off the walls of the old war museum. I felt that in every sentence I spoke that first week I was curating a brand.
It turns out I was.
What was worse than feeling watched was how I was watching others. My eyes peered into other people's worlds, trying to find rawness in their own performance. When you spend so much time analysing and critiquing how things look, your Nikon D850 can quickly turn into a selfie camera. I imagined everyone had a spy scanner behind their retina, silently assessing the subject of every interaction.
LESBIAN CARABINER DETECTED = ACCEPTED. BREATHA BUTTON UP DETECTED = REJECTED.
Although the art and design majors are a hotbed for this aesthetic analysis, we can’t solely blame our creative passions. When once we were worshipping gods and totems, we now bow to micro-trends and it-girls. Just as the Bible refers to the Christian God as the "Maker", a simple Google search of ‘Charli XCX Grammy performance 2025’ reveals who our Makers are today.
Artists are no longer just making art — they’re expected to make society. As Charli XCX says on TikTok channel Subwaytakes: “Being an artist is so much more than making music, it is about creating a world.”
But could those of us who get to judge these worlds be the real Makers?
Charli can create Brat, but we’re the ones who detect, accept, or reject. We are the ones making the culture. This teaspoon of freewill is empowering at first — until it becomes anxiety inducing when you remember what you study.
Right now, I’m just one of the many Makers. But what happens if the goal is achieved? If we reach esteemed artist status, do we lose this power? Or is the dream just a carrot dangling in front of the treadmill we’re running on? This would be more productive than letting my $8 Massey Gym subscription go to waste.
Heading into my third year, I consider the power of aesthetics within the Church of Art School. I feel compassion for my fresher self, wide eyed and stirred by the idea of a new life. They chased who they wanted to be. Blasé, yet engaging, but also effortlessly original. They would have a meticulously curated aesthetic to match this perfect personality. But I never found this person inside my soul. I couldn’t carve them out of the bones I had.
While I let go of the internal makeup of them, the external was much harder to shake.
Dipping brushes into eyeshadows more often than paints can lead you down a path of self-surveillance and failed assignments. It’s important for us to learn how to separate the ways we analyse art from the way you analyse style. My work should speak for me, not my fuck-ass-bob.
I love designers who dress like they couldn’t care less about clothes. Alexander Wang is almost exclusively seen wearing a plain black t- shirt and black jeans, yet he creates garments with unhinged silhouettes and bold textures. Watching him sprint out after Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid as techno blasted at his glamorous SS18 show only reinforced the separation between his art and his personal style.
When your craft is so highly respected, people seem to leave your closet alone.
As I walk around this Church, I adore the amount of expression I witness. Light pours in rays through the ceiling of the pyramid, hitting the bleach blonde eyebrows and Hysteric Glamour baby tees adorning students brazenly wandering to their studios. Artists and designers alike are laid out on the grass outside Wellington’s Tussock Café, with a distinct sense of unity when everyone's in their full regalia.
But here, physical appearance, creative output, and identity are so intimately linked in a way which means you can’t cultivate one without the others. Ask yourself, what are you putting your creative energy into?
Before we are Ballet-core, Grunge, or Whimsigoth, we are artists — dare I say Makers.