Karen

My artwork is laid in order of what have the closest relationships are closer together. My big scale painting and small scale painting are next to each other because they were created simultaneously with similar artistic intent. My participatory canvas displayed two separate canvases because the canvas on top represents feelings of the students at the beginning of the year and the second canvas shows the students feelings closer to the end of the year. 

In my own work I relied on music to influence my ideas. For instance, my big scale artwork was inspired by the song Glass Flows by the RnB artist Smino. Listening to the song while working on this art piece presented me with the palette I used. This song also relates to my small scale in the sense that it is an extension of my large scale artwork. With my participatory art piece there was no intentional connection with music. The plan was to have grade 10 students write or draw whatever they pleased and I would make an art piece surrounding that. I wanted to mainly focus on creating art around what the grade 10’s had already put onto the canvas. Music did influence my process because I would listen to my favourite artist through the creation process. The uniting concept for my exhibition is allowing oneself to trust their intuition. Most of the time I find it difficult to start an art piece or am scared to finish one due to the fear of either destroying something that I have come to like or the fear of creating something that is not good enough. During my time in the DP program I have learned many techniques and skills to help with the creation of art but what was most important was learning to trust the process. Art starts with an idea and a concept. 

This piece was inspired by the song ‘Glassflows’ by Smino. The choice of colour was largely inspired by the song. The ideas and concepts that I had associated with the song is what I tried to convey onto the canvas. To me this song is very warm. It has every shade of purple and at times is very shiny, so I tried to use gold. This painting, like the song, is a small but explosive part of the entire album BLKSWN by Smino.

My small scale is connected to my big scale in the sense that it shows the process behind how I made the painting. It is not a direct insight but instead it shows my pallet in the process of creating the canvas. Artist, Joe Fig, often makes small sculptures that look like the viewer is looking into the studio of an artist when they are in the process of creating an art piece. I created my small scale art piece with the same idea in mind. 

The collage of faces is made up of twelve sketches of sketches of people at different angles. I find myself having trouble when finishing art pieces so I created a piece of multiple unfinished pieces. When choosing a subject to draw I always prefer that subject be a person. This piece is meant to look like the rough drafts on the page of a sketchbook. 

With the help of the Grade 10 TMS students, I was able to make this art piece. The idea behind this was to create something based on the book ‘Beautiful Oops’ by Barney Saltzberg. The plan was to have the students draw anything they wanted on a blank canvas and then my contribution would be an extension of what they had already put on the canvas. I wanted to show that there can be art anywhere and can be created from anything.