In this article I present personalised socio-cultural inquiry in visual art education as a critical and expressive material praxis. The model of "Visual Performative Pedagogy and Communicative Proficiency for the Visual Art Classroom" is presented as a legitimate means of manipulating visual codes, communicating meaning and mediating values through imaging technologies. It identifies that visual art studio learning outcomes as exhibition artworks facilitate the mediation and communication of ideas, and support understanding of individual identities, social behaviours, culture and beliefs. A critical phenomenological methodology was used to explore longitudinal and case-study learning insights about student learning in a post-compulsory visual art curriculum in New South Wales, Australia. Through analysis of student artworks, reflective journals and post-schooling case-study interviews, the research identified that this unique learning environment developed visual communicative proficiency in the students. The findings affirm the significance of personalised imaging inquiry strategies to support understandings about the self, society and culture. The studio pedagogies and visual arts education curriculum in NSW represents an alternative approach to a prescribed and explicit values curriculum. This article will identify the key elements of the model of "Visual Performative Pedagogy and Communicative Proficiency for the Visual Art Classroom." It will expand on the aesthetic and critical approach in arts learning as studio pedagogy and the exhibition process that generates public benefits through socially embedded and embodied inquiry. (Contains 3 figures and 2 notes.)