For my visual component I am proposing to create seven artworks that redefine the 7 Formal elements in art and design, renegotiating their hegemony as essential pillars of art education by offering an alternative set of principles.
During a group critique of my ideas, the word REDEFINE was offered as a focus for this visual inquiry.
I'm unsure of the final outcome for this project, whether that is 7 conceptually independent artworks that fulfil this theme, or whether there is another way i can tie these elements together, so I will reflect here on the best way to respond to this theme.
Initial Mapping of ideas:
Pattern
– Contrasts to adaptive teaching/ breaking from standardisation and adapting to meet student needs rather than stencilling/ completing work for them.
Stencilling creates unanimous artworks that does not allow for indiviuality or student voice
This artwork was created through Joiner Photography, however could be adapted/developed further into a painting.
The most effective and resolved element of this is the use of the panda heads to replace the heads of the students. This provided anonymity for the students, but also represented a suffocation of student voice in favour of stencilled outcomes.
To represent this more fully, I propose to create an artwork that superimposes a painting of a panda with its mouth open, over a pattern created of students with their faces covered with the panda stencils.
Space
– Anti-Ableism and barriers to learning (Enablement)
This is the artwork I created for Recording task 2. This is the most complete work, and will fit nicely within this project. For this visual component i will complete the visually incomplete areas of the painting.
Line
– Value of teaching beyond the Didacticism
These are images taken from our group task to display a visual response to teaching strategies and approaches. This may inspire me to respond more abstractly to this element, perhaps also further reflecting my excperience and tensions with this in my second placement.
Value
Presentation, subject knowledge and enthusiasm, escaping the teacher-proof art curricula and the value of teaching practice.
I am considering initially reflecting on AI and its metaphorical comparison to the concept of the 'teacher proof' curricula. Furthermore, I have interacted with varying values of learning within schools. Where some schools stencil learning for attainment, other schools scaffold learning for independence.
Colour
– Inclusion and Diversity - Especially responding to colourblindness within schools How students cannot access colour content, but may certainly be able to access cultural content. Further on topic of colourblindness and possible ignorance within schools etc.
Shape
– Identity, Gender and bodies, ‘ideal forms’ and representation
Form
– Diversity in Media and processes.
I have considered Ideas such as:
Using a different media process in each artwork
Creating a vide that displays and links these artworks in a conceptually engaging way.
The below painting by Hieronymus Bosch, 'The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things' displays one approach I could take to displaying these artworks in a visually impactful way.
Alternatively, this could be seen as a shortcut/ excuse for reducing the workload to only six artworks instead of seven.
To combat and redefine concepts of form in a more interesting way, I could look to the form of the lesson. especially those whose form does not align with the creative project. Short-form lesson-planning leads to less in-depth understanding of art. Form could easily be redefined as Depth.
###UPDATE###
I realised whilst working into the first painting, that seven paintings this size (50x40cm) would be a lot of work. Not only this, but while I was painting I couldn't help but feel that I was laying the groundwork/ setting the stage for introducing some more interesting ideas and concepts. My painting of the School of Athens is a lot emptier than the original, which is rich with meaning, metaphors and concepts.
I decided to integrate my concept for 'Pattern' into the 'Space' painting, as I will show below:
SPACE & PATTERN
The metaphor feels more grounded, within the scene of the artwork, however the conceptual meaning of 'Pattern' does not attach well to the meaning of 'Space', instead they remain separate. If two ideas are displayed within pairs this could suggest to the audience they have been paired for a reason.
The masks are another part of the 'uniform' in a way and isolates the wheelchair user even further, however you can tell that the students aren't most pleased with the masks and that their identity.
The painting shows a young girl in a wheelchair who is unable to enter or be a part of a school.
The staircase represents a hierarchy of knowledge.
The students wear panda masks that flatten their features and they become indistinguishable.
Concerns:
Initially, I was intending on relying on the title of the work to communicate the association with the formal elements. I must consider how to best associate the formal elements with the scene depicted:
Perhaps through a visual motif of the number seven,
Perhaps through including all of the formal elements within the scene
Perhaps through tying together the words with the iconography literally (Space theme on the wheelchair, creating a pattern of panda masks on one of the walls etc)
I will try and theorise ways to incorporate a third element into this artwork to develop its themes.
COLOUR
To incorporate colour, I could present the mask from the 1966 film Blackgirl - this is especially effective as it challenges the culturally insensitive use of the popular african mask project from schools.
VALUE
Time can be presented as a clock, however I'm unsure on which step that time should seat.
LINE
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