Guess What?! 

You get to choose what you make your art about! 

Now tell me what do you have to say? 

Below you will find some random inspo! 

Themes & Artists

The Sacred Realm: Religion, Ritual and Spirituality 

Georges Roualt, Andres Serano, Marc Chagall, Annette Messager 

Politics and Society 

Kiki Smith, Barbara Kruger, Leon Golub, Banksy, JR, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Norman Rockwell, Nancy Spero, Ai Weiwei, Andy Warhol, Ellen Gallagher, Lorna Simpson 

Stories and Histories 

Diego Rivera, Georgia OʼKeefe, Frida Kahlo, Raymond Pettibon, Kara Walker 

Documenting Experience (Here and Now) 

Edward Hopper, Sally Mann, Johannes Vermeer, Katsushika Hokusai, George Bellows, Elizabeth Peyton 

The Human Experience (Looking Inward) 

Louise Bourgeois, Egon Schiele, Kathe Kolowitz, Ellen Gallagher, Lorna Simpson 

Invention & Fantasy 

Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Hermonios Bosch, Paul Klee, Yayoi Kusama Art & Nature Andy Goldsworthy, Robert Smithson, Maya Lin, Alfred Steiglitz, Eugene Atget, Thomas Cole, Henri Rousseau, Albert Bierstadt, George Inness, Shen Zhou 

Art & Art (Aesthetics) 

Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Sol Lewitt, El Anatsui, Marcel DuChamp, Julie Mehretu

Identity 

Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob), Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe),Revital Cohen, John Coplans, Robert Gober, Frida Kahlo, Deborah Kass, Wifredo Lam, Glenn Ligon, Ana Mendieta, Mariko Mori, Senga Nengudi, Adrian Piper,Richard Prince, Shahzia Sikander, Laurie Simmons, Lorna Simpson

Art 21 Links:

Season 1: Place, Spirituality, Identity, Consumption

Artists: Laurie Anderson, Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois,Michael Ray Charles, Mel Chin, John Feodorov, Ann Hamilton,Margaret Kilgallen, Beryl Korot, Barbara Kruger, Maya Lin, Sally Mann, Kerry James Marshall, Barry McGee, Bruce Nauman,Pepón Osorio, Richard Serra, Shahzia Sikander, James Turrell,William Wegman, Andrea Zittel

Season 2: Stories, Loss & Desire, Time, Humor

Artists: Eleanor Antin, Janine Antoni, Charles Atlas, Vija Celmins,Walton Ford, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Tim Hawkinson, Elizabeth Murray, Gabriel Orozco, Raymond Pettibon, Paul Pfeiffer, Martin Puryear, Collier Schorr, Kiki Smith, Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker

Season 3: Power, Memory, Play, Structures

Artists: Laylah Ali, Ida Applebroog, Ellen Gallagher, Cai Guo-Qiang, Arturo Herrera, Oliver Herring, Roni Horn, Teresa Hubbard & Alexander Birchler, Mike Kelley, Josiah McElheny, Matthew Ritchie, Susan Rothenberg, Jessica Stockholder, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Richard Tuttle, Fred Wilson, Krzysztof Wodiczko

Season 4: Romance, Protest, Ecology, Paradox

Artists: Robert Adams, Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla,Mark Bradford, Mark Dion, Jenny Holzer, Pierre Huyghe, Alfredo Jaar, An-My Lê, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Judy Pfaff, Lari Pittman,Robert Ryman, Laurie Simmons, Nancy Spero, Catherine Sullivan, Ursula von Rydingsvard

Season 5: Compassion, Fantasy, Transformation, Systems

Artists: John Baldessari, Cao Fei, Mary Heilmann, William Kentridge, Kimsooja, Jeff Koons, Florian Maier-Aichen, Paul McCarthy, Allan McCollum, Julie Mehretu, Doris Salcedo, Cindy Sherman, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Carrie Mae Weems

Season 6: Change, Boundaries, History, Balance

Artists: Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, David Altmejd, El Anatsui,assume vivid astro focus, Charles Atlas, Lynda Benglis,Rackstraw Downes, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mangold, Mary Reid Kelley, Catherine Opie, Sarah Sze, Tabaimo

Season 7: Investigation, Secrets, Legacy, Fiction

Artists: Tania Bruguera, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Leonardo Drew,Omer Fast, Katharina Grosse, Thomas Hirschhorn, Elliott Hundley, Graciela Iturbide, Joan Jonas, Wolfgang Laib, Trevor Paglen, Arlene Shechet

Source: http://www.art21.org/teach/materials-for-teaching/educators-guides

Questions to Consider:

Record your responses in the Visual Art Journal

• Which theme does your work most clearly address? Explain how your work aligns with that theme. Use descriptive language.

• Describe how the subject of your current work fits the theme that you identify. Describe how your research influenced your choices in developing it.

• Compare and contrast: In what ways does your current artwork address similar issues, imagery, ideas – or utilize the material(s) and technique(s) in comparison to an artwork that you have researched?

Source: https://bsgeweb.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/12th-grade-summer-assignment-dip-candidates-2013-14.pdf

FINDYOUR THEME:

Theme: What does this mean?

To create meaningful art an artist needs to find a theme or topic with which they have a strong personal link. At this point in your IB course your theme can be broad and cover a wide range of subject matter (NATURE, MAN MADE, FASHION, BEAUTY etc) but it needs to be personally linked to you the artist. Think about what interests you. What fascinates you? What are you passionate about?

Some examples themes/motifs that you could choose from (but you are strongly encouraged to develop your own):

• Metamorphosis – life cycles, change, alteration, transfiguration, mutation

• Music – sound, making tone visible, music culture, what do music and art have in common?

• Dance – movement, rhythm, repetition, physicality, meaning in gesture

• Legend/mythology – ancient, primitive, modern, stories, archetypes, moral lessons, religion, ritual, social obligations

• Nature vs. Science – current issues (bioethics) technology, how do we understand the world? Our place in the universe, limits of scientific knowledge, art and science, Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, etc.

• Myself - diary, memories, esteem, place in the world, pride, shame, family, heritage, ethnicity, self-portrait, friends, loves, enemies.

• Gender issues – male & female, role in society, in family, in evolution. Advantages/disadvantages of being one or the other. Stereotypes, cultural roles, sexuality, gender in politics, gender reversal.

• Scale – close-up/magnified, objects blown out of proportion, large vs. miniscule, other worlds of scale, space, positive/negative, color and texture.

• Other worlds – underwater, space, extraterrestrial, microscopic, imagination, computer/virtual world.

• Animals – other life, instinctual, life cycles of, physical/spiritual power in, ecology, animals as symbols, cultural associations with animals.

• Art and the senses – ways of knowing, art that smells, tastes, feels, etc. Art that appeals to alternative senses.

• Cryptography – art as code, codes in life, symbols, signs, text, sense in nonsense, order, mathematics, key to understanding.

• God/religion – creation, destruction, judgment, what is holy? Role of religion in society, metaphysics, personal sense of god, mercy, forgiveness, justification, sin, sacrifice.

• Kitsch – what is kitsch? What is beautiful? What is not? Value, mass production, pop culture, your own personal sense of kitsch, aspects of society as revealed in its kitsch.

• Graphics – use of line, color and composition to create a graphic identity, advertising, mass media, manipulation of imagery, the (blurred) line between what reality and the graphic representation.

• Human anatomy – body, muscle, bone, skin, weight distribution, issues of beauty and human body, use/abuse of the body, skin (color?), aging, disease.

• Dreams – meaning, analysis, associations, truth in, the bizarre, wish-fulfillment, imagery, Surrealism, the subconscious, Sigmund Freud. 

• Chance – allowing chance to dictate art, automatic drawing, the Exquisite Corpse, Surrealism, Dadaism, kinetic art, image association.

• Emotion – human feelings, expression, knowledge through emotion, emotional situations, culture and emotions, controlled/uncontrolled emotions, conveying emotion, color, line and shape and emotions, Expressionism, Fauvism, Abstraction.

• Collection/series – repetition, repeated objects, objects in a series, objects that share something in common, distant vs. close relationships between objects, association.

• Beauty/ugliness – what defines these? What constitutes the appealing or the repulsive? Manipulating materials so that they take on appealing/repulsive qualities.

• “The Wedding”-  from the engagement ring to the sealing kiss

• Architectural renderings-  showing (exploring) the interior and exterior space with a strong focus on light, perspective and structure

• Exploration- using realistic and non-objective animals (stipple technique….a series of black and white ink drawings moving into color)

• Portraits and the human form

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• Monkeys or primates

• Junk yard still life

• Tomatoes, from seed to fruit

• Fantasy characters – gargoyles, fairies, dragons, etc. – convincingly rendered

• Low riders

• Circus life

• My ancestry

• Crime and punishment

• Women in feminine roles

• “Seven deadly sins”

• “Things that make me smile”

• Historical events

• Reflections of images wherein the reflections are an emotional exploration (of literal reflections)

• Instruments that make music

• Icons w/in our society

• Strength of women (Cindy Sherman, Barbara Krueger)

• Dreams and dream images (Chagall, Dali)

• Dance images (degas)

• Struggle to find one’s self (identity)

• Figure studies in strong lights/darks

• Car interiors

• Abstract portraits

• Illustrate a classical character or story in a new or modern way (superemofriends)

• Childhood memories and feelings

• Evolution of an item as it deteriorates or decomposes

• Portrait/figure distortions in color/shapes (ed paschke)

• Personal or social issues

• Cultural diversity – social issues (diego rivera)

• Visual puns/hybrids (magritte)

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Note that all the above consist of topics/motifs that can and should be EXTENSIVELY researched experimented with and reflected upon.Your theme, whatever it is that you choose, should likewise be extensively researched and explored from as many angles as possible.

Filters

Approach your theme through a different “filter” – a way of considering your theme which can help you develop new ideas regarding your overall theme. Pick from the list below or create your own.  

• Self (you, your identity, self image, self-esteem) or dark self (see C.G. Jung)

• Family or ethnic group (not necessarily yours)

• Science & Technology

• Dreams/the surreal world,/alternate reality/questioning reality

• Society/Public vs. Private

• Gender issues/ Sexual politics

• Capitalism/ (Free)Trade/Economic equality/Globalism

• Epistemology (ie. how we know what we know)/TOK

• Conflict/resolution/war/peace

• Art/History/Art History/Interpretation

• Origins/Beginnings/Endings/divisions in time

• Age/Adolescence/Biological growth/evolution

• Location

• Power

• Symbols/Systems of Meaning/Codes

• Kitsch/Taste/Fashion

• Story/Narrative

• Humor/dark humor/

• Shock/Horror/Ugliness

• Any other suitable filter you might want to consider