AQA GCSE Art and Design Themes 2019 Resource Pack - Saatchi Gallery
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AQA GCSE Art and Design Themes 2019 Resource Pack Themes: Texture feeling · surface · rough · smooth · appearance · touch · finish · consistency Natural Forms nature · fossils · debris · foliage · imprints · delicate Messages words · images · meaning · gossip · contradiction · new · opposition · stories · Morse code · communication · letters · hidden · digital · myth · truth and lies · history · knowledge · themes · undertones The elements weather · harsh · nature · origins · wet · dry Working employment · method · revising · earning · hard · enjoyable · necessary · occupied My surroundings self · location · environment · backdrop · familiar Spaces open · connected · closed · light · dark · degrees · family · emotional · seen · unseen · unbreakable · place · galaxy · touchable It is usually the case that Artists and Designers use materials specific to the theme of their work, so they can illustrate a specific meaning, mood or story. They may also consider composition, scale, colour, text and style. They will develop their ideas, refine them through testing, reflect and record their work in writing and practical outcomes and present their work to reflect the theme running through it.
Consider how the artist has made the work. Look at what materials have they used. Why do you think they used these materials? Do you think the medium effectively portrays the concept/ theme of the work? Do you think there is more than one theme in the work? Do you see inspiration/ influences from other artists, art movements or events in the work? The following artists in Black Mirror particularly illustrate some of the themes listed above: Texture Alejandra Prieto/ Valerie Hegarty/ Aaron Fowler/ Steve Bishop/ Justin Craun/ Roman Stanczak/ Des Hughes/ Wendy Mayer/ Marianne Vitale Natural Forms Steve Bishop/ Des Hughes/ John Stezaker/ Aleksandra Mir Messages David Herbert/ Michael Cline/ Bedwyr Williams/ James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ Gao Brothers/ Scott King/ Simon Bedwell/ Douglas Kolk/ Aleksandra Mir The Elements Valerie Hegarty/ Dominic McGill/ Aleksandra Mir/ Marianne Vitale Working Jade Townsend/ Michael Cline/ Jessica Craig-Martin/ James Howard/ Alejandra Prieto/ Dominic McGill/ Clayton Brothers/ Simon Bedwell/ Des Hughes/ Richard Billingham/ Aleksandra Mir My Surroundings Jade Townsend/ Bedwyr Williams/ Michael Cline/ Anne Speier/ Jessica Craig-Martin/ James Howard/ Scott King/ Dominic McGill/ Aaron Fowler/ Clayton Brothers/ Justin Craun/ Roman Stanczak/ Simon Bedwell/ Wendy Mayer/ Richard Billingham/ Marianne Vitale Spaces Jade Townsend/ David Herbert/ Bedwyr Williams/ Anne Speier/ Michael Cline/ James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ Valerie Hegarty/ Clayton Brothers/ Justin Craun/ Roman Stanczak/ Wendy Mayer/ John Stezaker/ Richard Billingham/ Aleksandra Mir/ Marianne Vitale/ Douglas Kolk
Messages/ Spaces David Herbert Herbert makes works to a colossal scale, deliberately highlighting the scope of his subject matter. His work focuses on well-known icons and imagery and uses these to start a discussion about popular culture. Herbert’s work is humorous and reimagines the well-known, asking the audience to question how they view things. His work also challenges viewers to notice alterations, pointing out how we are often influenced by pop culture. The size of his work likewise eludes to the significance of the subject matter and how ‘big’ it’s impact has been on society. Written messages Implied messages Video messages Messages as stories The space around an object due to the scale
Messages/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Bedwyr Williams Williams frequently uses his own autobiographic existence to develop his sculptures and performances. By doing this he breaks down the barrier that can sometimes exist between artist and audience. His work merges art and life with a comedic twist. This makes his practice relatable and personally insightful for audience members engaging with the work. ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’ celebrates diversity, inclusion, and community. By using objects which are universal, Williams showcases the values of tolerance and individualism and makes the work relatable to everyone. The installation invites audience members to try on the shoes and become a part of the experience. This again plays with the idea of community and social inclusion. Written messages Messages as stories Social messages The space around an object/ installation Spaces that are made smaller between people Paying attention to my surroundings and those around me
Messages/ My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces Michael Cline Cline’s pastel coloured paintings depict fables in a contemporary style and setting. Many of his pieces are reminiscent of George Grosz and Pierre Klossowski’s paintings. Cline is primarily interested in faith, atonement and the American Dream. He uses unsullied illustration and dreamlike dystopian scenarios to show scenes of subtle horror, which add a sense of contrast. His images depict an imperfect world, where the good, the bad and the ordinary act out narratives of the artist’s imagining. Whilst Cline’s paintings are completed with unspoiled innocence, works such as ‘Woman In Doorway’ and ‘Police Line’, address uncomfortable subjects like violence. The perspective of the work also invites the viewer to enter the locations and settings and highlights the open secrets and closed-door gossip which exists within the paintings. Each painting tells a different story and a different message Characters who are involved in their surroundings Characters who are working Confined and open spaces (both domestic and outdoors or local)
My Surroundings/ Spaces Anne Speier Speier’s work is made up of experimental collage. She will use glossy colour against B&W to show contrast and juxtapose images of food with illustrated characters. Many of the images are comical recreations of scenes the artist has observed in real life. Speier will combine the ordinary with the ridiculous, in order to show the invented and often self-imposed absurdity of many social interactions. Using images of food for the bodies adds humour but also highlights the domestic setting. These are items which also influence people and are a staple in their lives. Domestic spaces Spaces between characters The characters and their surroundings
Working/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Jade Townsend Whilst the medium is important in Townsend’s work, it is the meaning which is the focus. Townsend uses satire to explore the idea of the “Boomtown” and how it can influence our activities and our art. He is interested in the concept of ‘the art fair’ and how it may have become a parody of itself. Townsend also plays with space and form, questioning how people react when viewing work. His work looks to go beyond language, culture, class and history. Instead his work is constructed in a way which refuses to conform. • Working in a different way Working methods • Showing characters surroundings • Questioning my surroundings as the audience The way in which the work reacts with the space it is in
My Surroundings/ Working Jessica Craig-Martin Craig-Martin uses her link photographing for Vanity Fair magazine within her own practice. She plays with composition, often cropping out the recognisable features of celebrities and the rich, so they cannot be acknowledged or glorified. Instead she focuses on their cigarettes and wrinkled hands, which serves as a stark contrast against the sparkling jewels and high- end fashion they are clad in. Craig-Martin’s photographs offer a candid glimpse at the seemingly seedy underbelly of the elite. They comment on society’s obsession with surface and materialism and ask the viewer to reassess the way they view the rich. The strong flash lighting and bleeding saturation of the colours add to the intensity of the images. Working in a different way Showing characters surroundings Questioning my surroundings and social expectations
Messages/ My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces James Howard Howard uses real text and image taken from spam emails found in his own email junk folder. He employs collage to combine the images and create a new narrative with them. In wanting to keep true to how real hackers work, Howard uses Photoshop and other kinds of graphic software, in order to create his collages. His work is bright and full of endless information. The endless narrative of the combined images leads the viewer to feel overwhelmed and saturated, mimicking the same effect endless junk mail can have. His work is constantly being processed and he often works with urgency in order to try and collect and use as much information as he can before it disappears. His work acts like an on-going social commentary, highlighting the vulnerability of the individual and of society as a whole. Visual and text based messages Working through information Messages as truth or lies Personal space My surroundings as the user and my vulnerability Spaces in real life and on the Web Working methods of the artist Spaces and layout of work
Texture/ Working Alejandra Prieto Prieto uses coal to explore themes linked to industrialisation. Her aim is to reinstate the value of the coal and transform it into an object of importance again. During the process of including coal within her work, she discovered a machine which used water to cut through the earthy substance. Using water to cut the coal makes the material reflective, which inspired the artist to make a mirror. The scale of the mirror in turn adds to the idea of vanity, opulence and wealth, thus reinstating the value of the coal as a high end object. Her work in turn highlights the paradox of material vs object. During the process Prieto discovered that the Pre-Columbian civilisation had also used coal to make mirrors. Smooth texture Rough texture Altered texture Working methods Working in industry
Messages/ The Elements/ Working/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Dominic McGill McGill often works on an epic scale, incorporating elements of collage, drawn imagery and a swirling sea of text. The text in McGill’s work is sourced from a variety of locations including clichés, sayings and political speeches. Words and phrases collide with one another adding a sense of contrast and implied contradiction. The size of his work makes you feel like you are entering the eye of a brainstorm when you stand before it. The use of B&W also emphasises a feeling of information sharing, like in the press or newspapers. Written and visual messages Implied messages Messages which compliment and contradict one another Illustrations of the elements and the messages these evoke Working methods Illustrations of different types of work My surroundings and how they exist Spaces which are filled and compact
Texture/ The Elements/ Spaces Valerie Hegarty The process of destruction rather than creation is most important in Hegarty’s work. Her pieces pose as artefacts when they are actually reproductions. The ‘broken’ paintings on display take inspiration from Frederick Church’s ‘Niagara Falls’ (pictured) and works by Thomas Moran. As she makes them she falsifies the ruination of her pieces, giving them the appearance of artefacts gone awry. Hegarty’s practice centres on the politics of the ‘American myth’, exploring themes of colonialism, the hero and antique design work. A strong link between 2D and 3D form also exists within the work, with the hint of the ‘original’ painting twisting and morphing into a tangeld 3D mass. This relationship between 2D and 3D is important in hinting at the suggested strength of the painted image and how it has overpowered the format of the work. Rough/ damaged texture vs smooth texture Painting of the elements Sculpture of the elements The exhibition space and how it is filled by work How space is effected by form in work
Messages/ My Surroundings Scott King King originally trained as a Graphic Designer. His work often explores product, desire and message, looking at how iconic images can become detached and reduced to representational information. His work explores political themes and uses installation, photography, and print to highlight a sense of journalistic image capturing. They are often tongue in cheek and playful in appearance. Implied messages Humorous messages My surroundings as the viewer and how I fit into the work
Messages Gao Brothers Brothers Gao Shen and Gao Qiang work together to create parodied political scenes, which often include images of Chairman Mao. Their work is influenced by their own upbringing in China with much of their work now censored there. They use a variety of materials and media including photography, performance art and sculpture. They believe photography allows them to over develop their imagination, exploring the tangible gap between reality and imaginings. Humour is often a central theme within their work, used to provoke and highlight elements within modern Chinese history. The use of B&W in the image pictured above also adds a documentary style feeling to the work, further blurring the lines between reality and satire. Humorous messages Political messages
Texture/ Natural Forms Steve Bishop Bishop often uses methods of taxidermy to create his work. He makes his pieces as “containers for something”. They are also an “embodiment”. This notion of a sculpture being an object but also a vessel, relates to ‘idolatry’. In combining different materials Bishop highlights the idea of opposites and how they work together. This includes combining taxidermy and concrete, where to see the soft fur of an animal matted in amongst hard concrete becomes quite jarring. The white colour palette in the piece pictured here also explores the idea of purity. The piece ‘It’s Hard to Make a Stand’ in contrast explores the process of readymade assemblage, with the horse made entirely out of foam. In ‘It’s Hard to Make a Stand’ Bishop is interested in how objects and materials can function by themselves. Soft texture against hard texture Multiple textures Natural forms in the form of a real goat (which has been preserved through the use of taxidermy) Natural forms vs man made objects
My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces Clayton Brothers Brothers Christian and Rob Clayton use painting and installation to create their work. There is no direct planning in their work. Instead they work intuitively to create intensely compacted images, full of narrative and energy. Though they work together, the brothers rarely work on the same canvas at the same time, nor do they discuss their work. They will add to and edit the pieces as they go along, adding a sense of the communal to the individual. The way the artist’s work also adds intensity to the layering of the paint, with different forms of mark making explored and interwoven. The work takes inspiration from their local environment in California with a laundrette the setting for the painting pictured above. Motifs, places, figures and gestures reoccur in different paintings, creating a linked series. The characters and their surroundings Working methods The artists and their surroundings Busy, energetic and active spaces Working environment
My Surroundings/ Texture Aaron Fowler Fowler’s action-packed figurative surfaces are almost Matisse like in their flat decorative treatment of space. His starting point often comes from one of his own photographs, which captures a moment or episode in his life. He incorporates 3D objects into collages, constructed from various pieces of furniture and objects sourced from his local surroundings. By doing this he injects and includes a lot of himself and his own environment into the work. Each piece depicts a narrative based on events from his own personal history. Many of these personal experiences are horrific or violent in nature and provoked Fowler to become an artist. He wants the viewer to connect with a “world that may not be familiar” Fowler. The characters and their surroundings The artist and his surroundings Multiple textures
My Surroundings/ Texture/ Space Justin Craun Craun’s work combines an electric colour palette with geometric shapes to make intensely packed scenes. His paintings always feature human figures, exploring the interior lives of others and whether these can be captured and communicated in an image. His work sarcastically depicts modern people in social media ready poses. There is a sense of realism to his hallucinatory paintings, which sometimes mimics Picasso’s ‘Primitivism’. Whilst the colours are bright and sweet in their saturation, there is a sense of uneasiness and even drama. Many of the figures look trapped or staged, as though they are stuck in varying social moments or narratives they cannot escape. Craun is particularly interested in how social pressures influence people. The predominately pink colour palette in this painting also plays on the fact that all frozen characters are female. The characters and their surroundings Smooth textures and rough textures Spaces which are layered and structured Static spaces
My Surroundings/ Working/ Messages Simon Bedwell Bedwell’s work has an element of fiction vs fact. He continually engages in a process of arranging and rearranging to expose what was previously subliminal in his found imagery. Some of his posters have intertwined the original commercial content so deeply with the artist’s fictional and aesthetic alterations that it is hard to detect what came first. His posters combine found image and text with those of his own invention. He uses ClipArt and WordArt software to make his work, keeping true to many of the methods used in advertising. He will also scavenge and reuse torn posters from billboards, bins and thrift stores, giving his work a sense of timeless authenticity. The characters and their surroundings The artist and his surroundings The audience and their surroundings Working methods Alerted messages
My Surroundings/ Texture/ Space Roman Stanczak Stanczak was one of the young artists involved in the ‘Forge’ movement. The ‘Forge’ was a collective in Warsaw, which was the home of the 1990s ‘Critical Art’ phenomenon. This movement took the human body and made it into a site of power within artistic practice. Stanczak uses domestic objects and fills them with traces of the human body. This includes sweat and blood which act as temporary stand-ins. He brutalises his work, destroying its fabric. He says this prepares him for the journey of life to death. By using domestic items, Stanczak makes the work relatable to the audience and asks them to reconsider the way they view the objects and themselves within their own domestic environment. The audience and their surroundings The artists and their surroundings Rough or broken textures Smooth textures Domestic spaces, which have an impact on our lives
Natural Forms/ Space John Stezaker Stezaker plays with the fabric of photography. He re- examines the audience’s relationship with it, questioning whether it’s a documentation, a memory or a symbol of modern culture. His works are photo collages, using found image to create ‘ready-mades’. He gathers images, with his collection currently containing more than 300,000 photographs. Stezaker’s work is playful but highly effective in prompting the viewer to consider identity. In his ‘Marriage’ series, Stezaker fuses together images of men and women, creating new identities. In the ‘Mask’ series, he creates new faces by overlaying images of landscapes or buildings and playing on the subject matter within the image. The end result is an optical illusion where trees become mouths and bridges become eyes. Natural forms evident in altered states (as faces) The space between reality and fiction The space and layout of two images, which come together to form one new image
Texture/ Working Des Hughes Hughes loves to defy conventions and assumptions about his work. He will often deliberately manipulate materials to take on the appearance of one another. He is interested in blurring the lines between the way the object looks and what it is actually made out of. The viewer must work to understand the art and open themselves up to the confusion it may cause. The piece pictured here is an example of how the surface of the body has been manipulated to look like textured wool or fabric but is in fact made out of resin. His work asks the audience to look and look again. Altered texture Rough texture Smooth texture Working methods Making the audience work to understand the materials which have been used
My Surroundings/ Texture/ Space Wendy Mayer Mayer’s work manipulates both the viewer’s sense of scale and their relationship with the human form. Because of the miniature size of her sculptures, the audience does not just observe the work, they also compare it to themselves and the space they are in. This leads to a sense of the unquiet in her work as the scale forces the audience to kneel and view the work like a child might, leaving them somewhat vulnerable. Her sculptures are hyper realistic, again prompting the audience to draw comparisons between themselves and the forms they encounter. The piece pictured to the left pays homage to artist Louise Bourgeois. The audience and their surroundings The artists and their surroundings Rough or feathered textures Smooth textures The space in which the audience must view the work
Massages/ Space Douglas Kolk Douglas Kolk uses large scale collage to create overlapping and endless dialogues within his work. He draws inspiration from comic books and pulp novel covers. His pieces are densely packed and full of information, which arrive from various angles and sources. The images present delicate ideas of identity and tainted virtue. This use of overloaded imagery replicates the feeling of being blasted with information. This is reflective of many people’s experience in contemporary urban life. There is a feeling of narrative within the work but with the clamour and confusion of the composition, it feels hard to find and follow it. The imagery also resembles the process of channel-surfing on the TV, where the viewer faces a barrage of information in broken and unfinished stages. The use of text in Kolk’s work adds another layer of concentration in that it demands to be read. In ‘Country Road’ images are swapped and interwoven, so nothing is any one thing. Visual messages Mixed messages Written messages Tight, layered or condensed space
My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces Richard Billingham Billingham’s photographs were borne of a need to have a reference point for starting his paintings. Billingham's original photographs were printed in B&W. What started as a point of reference for Billingham became an exploration of himself, his family and his upbringing. His photographs are candid, offering an observation of the artist’s private life. His images are introspective and confessional. The continual series of snap shot imagery builds a peephole narrative. The images are sincere and real. They trace time and the domestic setting in a strikingly honest way. Though specifically about Billingham’s family, the content and familiar domestic scene makes the work instantly relatable to the viewer. The work has also been shot so the viewer feels like they are spectating living moments. Billingham was nominated for the Turner Prize with his photo series ‘Ray’s a Laugh’, coining of the phrase “squalid realism”. The audience and their surroundings The artists and their surroundings Working class Working methods Domestic spaces, which have an impact on our lives
Natural Forms/ Messages/ The Elements/ Working/ Spaces Aleksandra Mir Mir works in B&W, thus mimicking and parodying newspapers and the press. Her work is large in scale and incorporates strong bold text with illustration. The font is often playful, which masks the frequently dark political/ historical themes being explored, but there is definitely a sense of history being told. Mir works collaboratively, sometimes sketching out the bones of the work before a team fills it in. Her assistants often took on humorous titles like ‘The Supervisor of Paper Cutting and Protector of Fingertips’ and ‘Secretary of Finesse’. The strong contrast of the B&W emphasises the contrast between hot and cold, light and dark and good and evil. Illustrations of natural forms Illustrations of the elements Implied messages Working methods, including working with others Political or historical messages The space between light and dark
Texture/ The Elements/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Marianne Vitale Vitale has used a range of materials throughout her artistic career but now largely uses reclaimed wood from derelict structures found around the USA. The ‘Burned Bridges’ series (pictured) plays on the saying “don’t burn your bridges”. Their broken and charred nature evokes sadness. This feeds into Vitale’s exploration of American concepts about land, loneliness, posterity and death. Many of her pieces are filmed thus trying to achieve her own posterity as well as injecting a sense of performance into the work. How the elements effect manmade structures The artists and their surroundings Rough or broken textures The space in which the work finds itself The space the audience must navigate to explore the work
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