AP Art and Design Selected Works 10th &11th Grade Students
The 10th and 11th Grade students on this page are sharing their Selected Works and Sustained Investigation statements. You can see a wide range of interests and concerns that resulted in the works below. All these students submitted their work to the AP for assessment. A number of these students will continue their practice and study of art as IB Visual Arts students or they'll be submitting work for another AP Art Portfolio next year.
Carla B: 2-D Portfolio
I am investigating the transformation that listening to music induces to an individual, which reflects in many aspects including mood, physical movement, and a sense of emotional release. My goal is showing this transformation through my artwork, by representing the music itself with abstract patterns that depict the atmosphere of the song, and by showing how the subject is affected. I will use watercolour as a medium and investigate surfaces such as watercolour paper, but also, more unusually, plaster. The unpredictable blooms and blotches of watercolour are spontaneous. These layers convey the atmosphere of music. The music pieces I was inspired from varied from fast paced and energetic, to slower and soothing songs. Each music piece/genre is represented in a different way through colours and brushstrokes. In my pieces I not only convey the atmosphere of the music, but also the way that it affects the subject. When working with watercolour on plaster, I found that the properties it has allows for the watercolour patterns to be more unique and spontaneous (especially when working wet on wet), which is more accurate to representing the unique atmospheres of music.
Carla B.
Nastya P: 2-D Portfolio
The question that guides my investigation is "What negative influences affect our dreams and lead to nightmares ?“ As an example if something tragic, dramatic or very extreme happens in your life, it affects your conscious mind. In this case, it will also effect your subconscious mind and be realised through dreams or nightmares. I started noting events revealed in my recurring nightmares. I recreated a personal experience of a nightmare reflected on a dramatic event of my life. I used a format of a graphic novel to express my intentions, through a narrative that explores the subconscious experience through a dreamlike story line. I used storyboards and frames from this imagined graphic novel, drawing materials such as (acrylic paint, palette knife, brushes, acrylic markers and liner pen) to convey the experience for the viewer to immerse themselves in. These often include drawn scenarios where I experience fear and anxiety such as the nightmare when I am hiding under the bed and being pursued by an assailant or being menaced on a train.
Nastya P.
Tamara G: 2-D Portfolio
My artwork portrays social media addiction and its control over us. Addiction overtakes people and causes changes in a person's behaviour. Throughout my work I will use Gelli prints, painting, collage and other techniques to combine different materials to collage the behaviours in which addictions take over a person. The painting work which I have done say used multiple shades of colours from bright to dark. This is to show the reasoning for why one is addicted to social media. The use of colouring is addictive to all viewers and how their eyes are attracted to the different colours making them want to go on their phone when receiving a notication or another video to view on their phones. The combinations of different materials and collages throughout the different works will portray the different behaviours, actions and mindsets that people go through when addicted to social media. How that addiction consumes someone and takes over their original identity to one that actually ts social media's and viewers criteria, even when one doesn't believe it has affected them much.
Tamara G.
Katelyn V: Drawing Portfolio
My portfolio examines the ways women are disconnected from society due to society's expectations of how women should present themselves. By exploring a multitude of women’s societal struggles and exploring this using visual notes, I began to identify my inquiry. I found that an effective way for me to portray disconnection within a person is to add details using ‘abnormal’ colours like purple or blue. I showed practice and development towards this by using oil paint. With this media, I could also explore the idea of a woman’s detachment from society; the more obvious lines and emphasis of shadows meant I could achieve a semi abstract feel. Through further experimentation, I found that the use of magazine clippings could also help me to achieve a sense of society's watchful eyes and influence. The media allowed me to represent this theme in a variety of ways including flowers, and collages. The collages portray how the woman is pressured by the media, this influence reflects negative emotions. My incorporation of emotions such as anger and feelings of detachment additionally contributed to my theme.
Katelyn V.
Amy K. 2-D Portfolio
How can I use different mediums to compel viewers to consider the impact addiction has on an individual? My sustained investigation depicts the effect of addiction on an individual. The addictions I am exploring are: smoking, drugs and technology. I tried to make use of the intense colours that I imagine (and through my research) are features of intoxication. I also wanted to describe the feelings of denial and fear as well as fragmented experiences that control addicts' day-to-day lives. I highlight the desperation of an addict through graphite drawings, painted portraits and collaged imagery. Many of my pieces are illustrated in graphite, further emphasising their feelings of loneliness and withdrawals. When using graphite, the absence of colour suggests the drained lows that follow the vibrant highs. An individual who exhibits compulsive behaviour that leads them to overdose on drugs, has the same compulsive behaviour to stare at their screen. The various addictions I am incorporating in my pieces are interconnected and represent an addict's struggles and pain.
Amy K.
Maddie N: 2-D Portfolio
How can my artwork show the emotional relationship that my reptile experiences compared to my dogs? Through colour, pattern, and emphasis on certain details such as eyes and background, I described the relationship of emotions my pet lizard experiences compared to my dogs. My bearded dragon and her lizard species have an underdeveloped hypothalamus, meaning she has a lower range of emotion than most species. As a solitary creature, she depends on herself for survival, therefore emotions are unimportant to her. On the other side, my dogs show a wide range of emotions and love. I explored how my pets interact with me and their environment. I investigated my dogs’ emotions through photography, while I drew my lizard from life as she stays very still throughout the day. I also used online references to develop my lizard’s emotions even further. I found that using different textures of digital pens enabled me to describe the feelings themselves and to symbolise the intensity of emotions they experience. Depicting these animals has given me insights into the different relationships and attachments we have with our pets. Maddie N.
Caitlin M: 2-D Portfolio
Within my sustained investigation, my work and ideas concern the ideal that animals and nature hold great significance in our world. Throughout history, different cultures and groups have attributed certain symbolisms to different entities. These animals played an important role within their societies and the given symbolisms built up throughout the passing of time. Now, in modern time, certain animal groups hold symbolic meaning universally. My investigation was specifically into what symbolisms are still recognised in our modern world. During my sustained investigation, I explored these ideas and researched the topic of animal symbolism as well as animism, so I could produce artworks that convey what I found. My investigation led to experimentation with different materials and processes, such as: Lino printing, watercolour painting, working with markers, pens, pencils, and more. After doing research related to my inquiry, I worked to produce different ideas for final art pieces, often redrafting and repeating certain processes to reach different results. Through the displayed practice, experimentation, and revision, I acquired and used the skills to produce final pieces.
Caitlin M.
Nina S: 2-D Portfolio
I decided to dedicate my work towards the body positivity and body image in general. It’s a movement promoting the idea that all people deserve to have a positive body image, regardless of how society and popular culture view ideal shape, size, and appearance. Body positivity takes the focus away from looks, and identifies people through their strengths and character values. I think we should encourage everyone (especially the younger generation) to identify the things they like about themselves, to focus on non-physical features, such as being smart, kind or funny. Help them appreciate themselves and others for what’s on the inside, not what they look like. I created a series of work promoting the positive body image and different kinds of beauty. I worked with collages , gouache, acrylic paints, watercolours, pastels to create unique series of artworks. Each piece represents a certain insecurity that people might have and embraces it as something beautiful rather then disgusting or some kind of defect.
Nina S.
Callum T: 2-D Portfolio
My work concerns itself with design, specifically fashion design, where I explore how the application of different patterns and colours affect visual aesthetics and enhance specific features. I then applied these principles to disproving the regular "fatphobic" excuses that prevent plus-sized inclusion into the couture industry by designing attractive feature enhancing clothes that could be worn by anyone. In the beginning I started off with 5 garment designs. I then cut the clothing parts of the drawings out to create stencils. I then created 5 patterns that I could apply behind each stencil, seeing the effects each pattern would have on each design. I figured out that it was not only garment design, but pose, and lines within the garment, that makes it visually appealing. My next aim was to experiment with poses and lines drawing 2 clothing collections that had heavy use of lines to create matching looks that had flattering curves that incorporate natural body shape/features into them. Using all these principles and techniques I designed my finals; a set of plus-sized clothes designed not to hide the stereotypically unattractive features but instead incorporate them into the design.
Callum T
Sofia G: 2-D Art and Design Portfolio
My work concerns itself with Cultural Diversity and its relationship with the world around us: what is the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation? I used linoleum block printmaking continuously, as a material and process in order to convey a combination of my cultural heritage and background, expressing cultural diversity, while maintaining the appreciation of my different cultures rather than appropriating them. I then used a repetition of prints to create pieces that are derived from combined imagery from my varied cultural backgrounds (Guatemalan, Turkish, Spanish, ‘American’). I also went through a process of layering lino prints to create a multi-coloured print. Through Gelli printing, I continued to use Guatemalan and Spanish colour patterns and textures in addition to the Turkish geometrical patterns I used for slides 1-4. The work from slides 5-10 shows an example of my representation of cultural appropriation, the conflict between the two sides- the sports fan vs the Native American. I incorporated the backgrounds of each culture to show the significant differences of the clashing cultures and how this can be detrimental to society when misrepresented.
Sofia G.
Stelios K: 2-D Art and Design Portfolio
The passing of time through physical decay and erosion is an inevitable and universally experienced phenomenon. In this inquiry, I focused on the decay in living organisms and the decay in inanimate objects. I explored these by experimenting with a variety of mediums, ranging from digital photography to graphite, paint and embroidery. Each medium enabled me to discover and manifest a distinctive facet of the inquiry. Using these mediums, I captured different aspects of decay in living organisms. An investigation into the decay of skin, elastosis, allowed me to explore an inevitable stage in the circle of life. I looked into the decay of natural organisms, such as food, and displayed the beauty of mould, through digital photography and acrylic paint. In another stream of inquiry, that of inanimate objects, I chose to capture the decay of metal, as I was intrigued by the beauty and formation of rust. All of my final pieces were a result of experimentation and multiple revisions. I hope that through this sustained investigation the audience appreciates that what is worn and affected by time and nature holds beauty and should not be discarded or replaced by artificial substitutes.