“FIND your own voice” is the advice art lecturer at the Canberra Institute of Technology, Bernie Slater, gives to incoming students.

Right now, at the CIT’s Reid campus, “Insight”, Diploma of Visual Art Graduating Exhibition, shows both technical know-how and self-exploration.

“CityNews” took a walk through the show with Slater, a well-known printmaker and drawing artist, who said that at the CIT, emphasis had to be placed on practical aspects of art, including marketing and self-promotion, even if there were to be no solid outcome, “like being a plumber,” though some did find work in illustrating and design.

But frequently, he said, students in the entry-level Certificate IV Visual Arts course, who had exhibited their work for a day late last week, move on to the full diploma course. And some would, just as Slater himself had done, move from the CIT to the ANU School of Art and design if they wanted to develop their practice further.

A wide-shot of “Insight,” above, gives a good idea of the range of works the show, which runs throughout the coming week. Central to the installation are three-dimensional “dioramas” by Marie Alexis, whose assemblages look at addictive behaviour through a series of stage-like set models.

Behind them, in sharp contrast, are paintings, some reworked in paint from phone-snaps, by Hugo Toro, a public servant by day, who also teaches drawing, watercolour, acrylics at the Canberra Art Workshop by night.

Korean-born Youngbin Cho has assembled his nostalgic “Man from Trunk” from found objects here in Australia.

Brittany McCarthy’s delightful illustrations to children’s books. “Tales of Five Girls”, present a twist on familiar storybook heroines.

And Dianne McWhirter, who told “CityNews” she talked to her avian subjects, is exhibiting a lively series of courted drawings paper, “Homage to the Magpie”.

Other works on show are executed in acrylics, pencil, watercolour, fibre, Perspex – even teabags, wheelie bins, batteries and USBs.

“Insight,” Diploma of Visual Art Graduating Exhibition, in The Design Space, Building F, CIT Campus, Reid .until Friday, December 14, during CIT hours.

News all day, every day at CityNews.com.au.