IB HL Art

I have interacted with fear, having it effectively alter my personality. It furthers my curiosity about its consequences, leading my body of work to focus on the nature of fear as a concept: how it may impact one as a person. 

This thematic body of work is curated to narrate how I see fear and ultimately how it shapes my personality. This is to expose to others how fear may affect one's connections with others, how it may lead to moments of indifference, and ultimately how fear is created through one's actions. Whilst the concept is based on my experiences and beliefs, my work deals with social experiences within fear, showing that it is omnipresent. The social aspect is created through the understanding of how fear can interfere with one’s life and identity. My experiences are used to help someone not go through it themselves. The narrative is metaphorically configured like a tree. The trunk, consisting of reasons why the fear began and how it transformed, and later branched out. The branches of the tree, represent the investigation of how fear has affected my life and others, and how that impacts identity. Moreover, the genre of my work is typically abstract in formal qualities, depending on line, colour and symbolism to convey my intentions regarding the consequences of fear. Elements of design such as strong diagonal, reflective light, biomorphic forms and distortion are used to create movement, emphasis and contrast within my artworks. The media throughout the body of work is mainly varied, yet consists of several digital photographs, creating a sense of unity. 

The artworks throughout my exhibition will be placed close to each other on the wooden board, 15 cm apart, showing connection in the narration. Having it be eye level to average height (5ft7) prompts the belief that the consequences of fear are in the audience’s life, in their eyesight, one just has to look harder. The space provided consists of a room with white walls and a big window allowing for a lot of natural light, as well as 7 white wooden-boards to hang artwork. My organisation of the space consists of a three-sided square opened towards the natural light to contrast  with my last artwork, allowing for a dark space in a 2m x 4m room. As the school gave me 4 track lights, lighting will be emphasized in certain artworks such as “Meet Fear” and “No strings attached”, targeting the impact of light in creating shadows. One then sees “Meet Fear” in different manners due to the light’s spotlight, creating different perspectives. The artworks are arranged so that each turn in the square symbolizes a new perspective on fear. Cross lighting is used to unify the curation to show a continuous story line despite subgroups. The artwork, ‘Recognition Competition’ is placed first, apart from other artworks to emphasize where fear and its concept stemmed from. The first side of the square includes the piece ‘Temperamental’, showing the transformation of fear, followed by the boards in the middle, signifying the different manners through which fear interferes with identity. The last wall depicts conclusions of what fear does to the average human, and its impact on identity. The last artwork will be the the interactive site-specific piece, ‘Meet Fear’, which aims to prompt the audience to attempt to be free through the acknowledgement of their own fear, leaving it behind through written word. The lighting will be extremely important in this piece, allowing for the audience to have their own interpretation of what fear is. 

I chose to not include my first work, “Build it up, tear it down” because of the lack of conceptual qualities because of the selection of superficial symbols such as a wall and eyes to show how one hides behind a barrier. The idea behind “Closed Lense” developed the concept in “Build it up..”. In creating this body of work I aim to have the audience understand that it’s normal to have fear, and it should not be hidden. It aims to empower the audience through their understanding of fear and its implications on identities, allowing for a change on their perspective of fear.