Unit 1: What is beauty?

Diversity

Colored pen on paper, 14 x 10 inches

Aesthetics could be defined in various different ways depending on what one thinks it is. However, we define those meanings from what we see, hear, and learn which is related to one’s own personal experiences and cultural communication. To express what aesthetics is through my own sight, I involved the factors that could define beauty in my own country’s traditional culture. However, even though I define it as beauty, others could interpret differently depending on their thoughts and feelings. As I had my own understanding, the interpretation of this artwork is freely open-minded. The women do not have specific facial emotions signifying that everyone has a different understanding of beauty based on their emotions.

Unit reflection

There were a lot of things I learned in this unit but generally, the most important thing I learned was expressing something from my own point of view specifically about aesthetics in this artwork. From learning this skill, I enhanced researching skills, art skills such as expanded the knowledge of art, use of materials and even the basic art skills like drawing. Especially from the preparation of the final artwork, I have learned a lot of knowledges related to art and was able to gain an idea about how different kinds of artworks are being created depending on the sight the artist has. I learned to become more creative by trying new things I haven't experienced in the past and art skills that require complicated methods and techniques. Based on the creative thinking skills, I was very creative when creating the artwork since I tried to interpret the topic and art in my individual perspective and justified the perspective I have through out the artwork. One of the challenges I encountered was working on the background of the artwork. Since I had to work on the background at last, the steps and skills were more complicated compared to working on the main figures in the drawing. I had to be more detailed in order to not disturb the main figure. Also, the patterns applied in the background required a lot of time and effort. However, there was also some great success I encountered when creating the artwork. Learning deeply about what art is and how to create different types of art was very interesting and it was a helpful learning in my knowledge of being independent and creative. Also, when I completed the work, I was able to accomplish most of the stands required and completely understand the concept of the unit which I wasn't really clear at the beginning of the unit when I started learning and exploring about it. This proves that I was successful and have developed into a better understanding of art.

Yoonseo Jang

Unit 2: Self Discovery

Self portrait

Collage, 14 x 10 inches

My artistic intention could be divided into two aspects, the artistic intention for learning and using the mixed media art skills and the artistic intention for the design and the overall theme of the artwork. My main artistic intentions for studying mixed media art and creating artwork using the skills was to improve my range of being able to create artworks using different art styles. I really liked how different materials with different color, different texture, and even with different patterns collaborate together to create another style and design. I wanted to be able to manage different art skills and enhance the skills with expressing in the artwork. I personally believe that my artistic intention for the theme and the purpose of the design of the artwork relates to why I have studied and explored mixed media art. Since the topic was self discovery, I wanted to express and show what kind of person I am, including what I like, what I do and even with explaining what my interests are. So, I thought that if I learn and understand mixed media art, which allows me to collaborate different things at once, I would be able to make people who watch the artwork more easily and directly understand and feel who I am through the artwork. This connects to why I mainly used bright colors and added several icons and images in the collage. Since it is a style of art that requires collage, I wanted to give collaborative and also a little bit of mixed image and feelings using the different materials which each has its own characteristic.

Unit 3: Art In Trying Times

Before I explore which artform I will be using for this project, I first explored some of the existing artwork examples with the concept of pandemic including Covid 19. From these artworks, I tried to think about how different artists have expressed pandemic and the overall ambience and the mood of the artworks due to the depressing concept. One of the major ideas I gained from exploration was that the use of black and white in creating artworks makes it easier and direct to deliver dark and negative impact. The important part is how well I apply the details and show clear contrast into each figure to emphasize the figure itself.

Since I already know how the coronavirus first started (the reason the virus was created and spread), I started to research about the changes the virus has brought in our everyday lives. As I expected, I was able to explore a lot of different examples of how our daily routines and simple activities had to be changed or canceled and there were all different kinds of small and big changes. Among the various changes, the most direct and effective change to me as a student, was the school closures. The changes not only affected people, but all parts of the environment including animals, nature and etc. Adding on to these results due to the covid, the biggest change is the anxiety and depression a lot of people feel and think.

Unit 4: Community Art

For this project, I decided to compile all the different techniques I have experienced throughout the year from the 4 different units. However, with a new format that is somehow different from the previous techniques or by adding new creative techniques into it. To compile all the different ideas I have and experienced, and to make it more interesting for the viewers, I have decided to create three pieces of artwork in total, all with different concepts. So, I have chosen to experience watercolor, and mixed media art. The mixed media not only focused on color paper which was my main concept in previous artwork, I added new types of materials such as fabric and other elements to fully express what I want to. This information and knowledge used in creating the artworks were all mainly from the previous research I had when I made the artworks for unit 1,2, and 3. However, I still had to reflect back and experience and practice the skills before I created the artwork. For the mixed media, and using the papers, I focused on my first and second artwork. I tried to consider the difficulties I had when I created these artworks and also thought about what I could have done better and why I should have done better in order to make this artwork a much better piece compared to the previous artwork. For the concept of the artwork, I tried to focus on using symbols as a part of expressing symbolism. In the factual, conceptual, and debatable questions, there were a lot of ideas and concepts about both symbols and symbolism. So, I thought about an idea “What if I collaborate both of the two concepts, the symbol itself as a use of shapes and at the same time also as a use of symbolism. For this specific project, as mentioned, I mainly considered the methods I want to explore more about and also how I want to be creative and different in using the methods. I tried to consider the concept of expressing different emotions and feelings from different circumstances through my artwork. From the topic of expressing and considering feelings and emotions, as well as considering both symbols and symbolism, I thought about using a window since the various shapes of a windows could represent the aspect of “shape” and through illustrating a window, I could express my emotions, imaginations, and feeling.