FRANCESCO BARBIERI SOLE A. CASTELBARCO ALBANI

Taking the IB Art course over the past two years has enabled and helped me to become a more varied and creative individual. Without ever studying Art before, I have been faced with practical challenges and have had to work hard to improve my handling of materials.With inspiration from well-known established artists, the course has encouraged me to make connections and amalgamations between my ideas and the concepts of the artists explored. The course has given me the confidence to be more daring individually, willing to take risks and launch myself into new projects. In the first year I took time to learn techniques and basic fundamental skills because of my lack of artistic experience. After gaining more confidence, I was able to start experimenting with different styles and media. Furthermore, one of the factors most enjoyed about the course was being able to express myself and my story, both abstract concepts, in a concrete and material manner through painting or sculpting. In my Comparative Study for example, one of the artists I chose was a Japanese woodblock printer due to the fact that Japan was my birthplace. From there, unravelled the concept of origins and moved on to the idea of starting a project on twins, given that my twin is clearly related to my origins. This made the project very personal and important to me as it became a way to express myself and my past. With experience, my ability to fluctuate between styles and concepts increased and I learned how to use a more controlled colour palette as opposed to the bright and bold one I initially used. Also, I became more versatile in the projects could undertake as managed to develop the ability to view things with perspective and with the goal to reproduce them with observation.

Art is a new subject for me. Before BSM, I had never been taught Art. The IB Visual Arts course has helped me to improve my artistic skills and techniques greatly. I have always had an interest in Art but producing it is very different. It has been a challenge but a good one! In the past 18 months, I have learned numerous skills that have built a foundation for developing my own artistic style.The best and most fun part of the course has been experimenting with mixed media. During these two years, have been introduced to many new artists and have formed a deep appreciation for non-figurative painting. Pablo Picasso has been a great source of inspiration for my work, in particular his abstractions of still life. He has taught me how to break down a realistic and figurative image to achieve a personal outcome. This means not being afraid to create non-realistic pieces of work. As my work developed and abstracted similarly to Picasso’s ‘Bull series’, I noticed my work offered a slight symbolic reference to a still life but not a realistic one. After seeing an exhibition ‘Alfabeto Segnico’ in the Palazzo Delle Stelline in Milan, I was inspired by a group of artists that use abstract symbols such as Giuseppe Capogrossi, Sergi Barnils and Achille. In my contemporary culture, it is becoming second nature to communicate with abbreviations or emojis to avoid writing a long written explanation. By looking at communicative symbols used in my youth culture such as emojis, face texts, graffiti, decided to create my own form of coded communication within my work. I enjoyed developing these ideas and symbols sequentially like Picasso’ Bull series. I believe that this course has had major impact on my way of thinking and viewing art since it helped me to understand the importance of language within art.