CICI T Art GCSE Exam 2020

CiCi T GCSE Exam Portfolio Presentation EVENT

Statement of Intent: Event For the theme of ‘Event’ I wanted to look at different people’s emotional response to an event - preferably an historic one. I have aimed to produce a sketchbook documenting my ideas, experiments, evaluations and developments on the theme of ‘Event’. To tie in with my mock piece and also with the larger theme of Identity, I chose the famous Ancient Greek story of the Trojan War: The Iliad.

The Iliad is an epic poem recounting the story of Greek forces attacking the City of Troy in order to recapture the beautiful Helen. It culminates in the famous story of the Trojan Horse. Most importantly for my idea was that the Iliad formed the basis of Greek history and the Ancient Greek identity. Moreover, the Iliad contains many colourful and interesting characters to choose from. In my mock piece I looked at Ancient Greek (and Roman) philosophers and so the Iliad is a logical continuation.

You can tell a lot about a person’s character based on their reactions to an event. I wanted to explore different emotions during and after an ‘event’. The ‘event’ here being the Trojan War. In order to convey emotions, I took inspiration from Picasso; I used colour to represent emotions. But colours often represent several different emotions/ traits which is fitting as people are not 2D and have and display many different emotions I wanted to look at Greek statues as statues of any kind have always interested me - photos of statues have been my primary source for my pieces in my Y10 end of Year Exam, my experimental pieces, my Mock Exam, and now my final GCSE piece. When I visited the Royal Academy in London I saw and photographed a cast of the Belvedere Torso, which - in some interpretations - is of the Ancient Greek warrior Ajax. Ajax is known for his envy of Achilles and his prowess in the Trojan War. In my research I found a headless statue of Athena, who represents wisdom and slyness, who fought for the Greeks in the Iliad. And finally Aphrodite, the goddess of love, seemed an appropriate addition as her anger leads her to protect Paris and the Trojans in the War. All of the statues are headless - representing the power of emotions over logic.

I wanted to preserve the classical style of the statues while adding my own modern twist. I wanted brash colours and bold text in the background. This is to show the timelessness of human stories - modern day readers still feel the same emotions in response to the same events (grief after death, joy after victory, anger after injustice) although in different circumstances. For this I will use acrylic paint and felt tip pen as I am confident using both. I will use acrylic paint to create a ‘dripping background’ with a figure (Ajax, Aphrodite, and Athena) on top. I will use the pen to write over the background, indicating the emotions of the figure. The figure will be the ‘correct’ colour (e.g. red) while the background will be both of the other colours (e.g. blue and green). This will represent the complexity of human emotions whilst also creating variety in the piece. If I had access to the school’s resources I would use brighter colours but, unfortunately, the only colours I have access to are more muted then I would like.

Initially I wanted to focus on the colour red - as its meaning is the most duplicitous (i.e. it represents love and anger, two opposing emotions). However as I progressed through the project, it seemed fitting to include more colours to fully realise my concept.

Moreover, I really enjoy triptychs so 3 colours/ emotions fitted. I have used primary sources - my own photographs- and secondary sources (from books and the internet) where necessary.

I ran out of paint her (quarantine)

My Final Piece: Event

The final pieces for my should be arranged descending. This represents the metaphorical sense of descending into ‘dark’ thoughts and emotions. Moreover, it will complement my mock pieces, which ascend.

My mock pieces

My final pieces: