Kingsley Art - Externally-Set Assignment

GCSE Fine Art

The Externally-Set Assignment project is set from January in Year 11 by the exam board, AQA. You will be issued a paper with a set of starting points to choose from.

Between January and May you will use your lessons and homework to put together all your preparatory work, and then in May you will have 10 hours of supervised time to complete your final piece. All of your work from your whole GCSE course will be handed in at the end of this 10 hours.

Advice:

• You should discuss your ideas with your teacher before deciding on your starting point.

• You should make sure that all appropriate materials and/or equipment which you might need are available before you start the supervised sessions.

• You should not contact any artists mentioned in this paper.

Your work will be marked according to how well you have shown evidence of:

• Developing ideas through investigations, demonstrating a critical understanding of sources.
• Refining work by exploring ideas, selecting and experimenting with appropriate media, materials, techniques, and processes.
• Recording ideas, observations, and insights relevant to your intentions as work progresses.
• Presenting a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and demonstrates an understanding of visual language.

Choose one of the following starting points and produce a personal response:

1. Portrait
2. Transport
3. Places and spaces
4. Entwined
5. Fragments
6. Boundaries, borders and edges
7. Celebration

ARTISTS FOR INSPIRATION:

1. PORTRAIT:

Artists have used a variety of approaches to create portraits. Hannah Höch explored themes of gender and identity in her collages and photomontages. Alison Lambert makes large-scale drawings of faces that portray emotion and expression. Delita Martin creates mixed media portraits that celebrate tradition and identity in the lives of Black women. Rembrandt van Rijn is known for his ability to capture the personality of his subjects, whereas Ron Mueck exaggerates scale in his hyperrealistic models of human figures.

Investigate appropriate sources and create your own work in response to Portrait.

2. TRANSPORT:

Many artists have been inspired by the scale, form and function of transport. Peter Blake created distinctive patterns in his ‘dazzle’ design for the Liverpool ferry boat. The vivid colours and bold structures that feature in prints and paintings by Gail Brodholt were inspired by the London transport network. Car and bike parts are transformed by Edouard Martinet into fish, insects and other animal sculptures. David Nash mapped the journey of his free-range sculpture Wooden Boulder as it was transported by natural forces to different locations. The Futurists depicted planes and trains to express the dynamism and speed of modern technologies.

Study appropriate sources and produce your own response to Transport.

3. PLACES AND SPACES:

Places and spaces inspire and give meaning to the work of many artists. Sculptor Antony Gormley aims to inspire a feeling of hope through his installation Another Place at Crosby Beach. Nerine Tassie creates a strong sense of atmosphere and a connection to place in her woodland paintings. Prehistoric animal drawings discovered in Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave are believed to have had transformative power and spiritual significance. Alice Fox makes woven structures with natural materials gathered from her allotment and coding artist Jayson Haebich uses digital processes to create site-specific laser light installations.

Consider relevant sources and create your own response to Places and spaces.

4. ENTWINED:

Creative practitioners have explored entwined subject matter in a variety of ways. Viking artists decorated weapons, ships and jewellery with elaborate, interlaced designs of twisting animal forms. El Anatsui uses found objects within his intricately woven, large-scale installations. Susan Ogilvy has made detailed watercolour studies to record the complex, interwoven structures of birds’ nests. Fiona Morley entwines fine wire and combines this with paint, to produce detailed figurative pieces. Textile sculptor Judith Scott created cocoon-like woven and wrapped abstract forms.

Explore relevant sources and develop a personal response to Entwined.

5. FRAGMENTS:

Artists have explored ways to combine fragments to create interesting outcomes. Mohamad Hafez contrasts scenes of devastation with messages of hope in his architectural sculptures made from found objects. Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso experimented with fragmenting and reassembling subject matter in their early Cubist art works. Inspired by maps, Val Britton works with paper to make fragmented, exploded landscapes and Nigel Henderson made layered collages from fragments of printed matter, photography and paint. Working in the Japanese kintsugi style, Yeesookyung produces unusual sculptures by fusing porcelain fragments with gold.

Refer to suitable sources and develop your own work in response to Fragments.

6. BOUNDARIES, BORDERS AND EDGES:

Boundaries, borders and edges have been recorded and explored by artists in many ways. Sarah Ross-Thompson makes collagraph prints where the content often extends beyond the edges of the printing plate. Nick Lamia uses vibrant colours, layers and shapes to explore boundary lines in his abstract paintings. Inspired by the tradition of Indian miniature painting, The Singh Twins include highly decorative borders in their narrative work. Street artists often choose specific sites for their work to draw attention to the purpose and meanings of borders and boundaries.

Explore relevant sources and develop a personal response to Boundaries, borders and edges.

7. CELEBRATION:

The theme Celebration can be interpreted in many ways. Refer to appropriate sources

and develop your own interpretation of Celebration, or respond to one of the following:

(a) a celebration of the wonders of the natural world

(b) a celebration with family and friends

(c) ‘Celebrate’: a commission to create artwork based on inspirational sporting achievements, to be displayed in a sports venue.