Overall Visual Arts Grade Descriptors   Support Files   

Comparison Timeline Notes

 Visual Arts exhibition submission deadline: April 9th

Visual Arts process portfolio and comparative study submission deadline: April 20th 

PART 1: Comparative Study (Weighting: 20%) [notes]

Students are required to analyze and compare artworks, objects or artifacts by different artists. This independent critical and contextual investigation should explore artworks, objects and artifacts from differing cultural contexts.

PART 2: Process Portfolio Assessment (Weighting: 40%) [notes]  

(9–18 screens – SL & 13–25 screens – HL)

Students submit carefully selected materials which demonstrate their experimentation, exploration, manipulation and refinement of a variety of visual arts activities during the two-year course. The work, which may be extracted from their visual arts journal and other sketch books, notebooks, folios and so on, should have led to the creation of both resolved and unresolved works. The selected process portfolio work should show evidence of their technical accomplishment during the visual arts course and an understanding of the use of materials, ideas and practices appropriate to visual communication. They should be carefully selected to match the requirements of the assessment criteria at the highest possible level.

The work selected for submission should show how students have explored and worked with a variety of techniques, effects and processes in order to extend their art-making skills base. This will include focused, experimental, developmental, observational, skill-based, reflective, imaginative and creative experiments which may have led to refined outcomes.

PART 3: Exhibition (Weighting: 40%) [notes] 

(4–7 artworks – SL & 8–11 artworks – HL)

Students submit for assessment a selection of resolved artworks for their exhibition. The selected pieces should show evidence of their technical accomplishment during the visual arts course and an understanding of the use of materials, ideas and practices to realize their intentions. Students also evidence the decision-making process which underpins the selection of this connected and cohesive body of work for an audience in the form of a curatorial rationale.

During the course students will have learned the skills and techniques necessary to produce their own independent artwork in a variety of media. In order to prepare for assessment in this component, students will select the required number of pieces to best match the task requirements and demonstrate their highest achievement. Students at SL select 4–7 artworks for submission while students at HL select 8–11 artworks for submission.

The final presentation of the work is assessed in the context of the presentation as a whole (including the accompanying text) by the teacher against the task assessment criteria.

Curatorial Rationale (notes)

Students should also develop a curatorial rationale which accompanies their original artworks (400 words maximum – SL & 700 words maximum – HL  ). This rationale explains the intentions of the student and how they have considered the presentation of work using curatorial methodologies.  HL students need to consider as well the potential relationship between the artworks and the viewer.

The curatorial rationale is only worth 3 of 30 points but is very important because it defines the ‘coherent body of works’ which is worth 9 of 30 points.