OCR GCSE Art and Design Themes 2014
Resource Pack
Written Starting Points:
Spill, drop or break – Fall, leak, splatter, escape, split, fracture, shatter, pieces, splash, smash, damage, liquids/solids, fragile,
chaos, disorder, gravity
Present – Gift, souvenir, reward, wrapping, bow and ribbon, packaging, labels, surprise, unusual, personal, special occasions,
reveal/unrevealed, 3D structures
Chrome – Shine, reflective, mirror, polish, trim, machine, vehicle, electroplate, man- made, architecture, industrial machinery
Headdress – Fascinator, hat, hood, helmet, turban, scarf, crown, tiara, veil, bonnet, boater, panama, carnival, tribal headdresses,
traditions related to clothing, class differences between clothing, religious headwear
Dental care – Teeth, mouth, clean, floss, brush, paste, wash, pick, hygiene, dentist, orthodontist, false teeth, medicine through
history, medical technology and advances
Mobile – Moving, swinging, changing, fluid, flexible, travelling, movement, dance, speed
Visual Starting points
Profile – composition, layout, space
Montage – materials, techniques, processes, experimentation
Critical and contextual studies
Geometric patterns – shapes, repetition, rotation, minimalism
Couples – relationships – love, families, history, stories, grouping of objects
Trees – landscape, figurative, abstract, topographical, experience of landscape
When collecting research and contextual influences:
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Consider how the artist has made the work.
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Look at what materials have they used.
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Why do you think they used these materials?
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Do you think the medium effectively portrays the concept/ theme of the work?
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Do you think there is more than one theme in the work?
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Do you see inspiration/ influences from other artists, art movements or events in the work?
It is usually the case that Artists and Designers use materials specific to the theme of their work, so they can illustrate a specific meaning,
mood or story. They may also consider composition, scale, colour, text and style. They will develop their ideas, refine them though testing,
reflect and record their work in writing and practical outcomes and present their work to reflect the theme running through it.
Contextual studies framework
Describe – What do you see? Imagine you are describing this artwork to someone over the phone.
Analyse - What is the mood of the piece? Can you see a theme within the piece? What is it the artist’s concept (their overall idea)?
Interpret - How has the artist created the mood/themes of the piece? Discuss the composition, scale, form, materials, techniques, colours,
tone, texture
Judge – You can discuss your personal opinion here. Support your opinions with what you have previously written about in describe, analyse,
interpret and judge. Do you think this artwork is effective? Does it engage you? Does it capture your imagination? Are you intrigued? Do you
want to find more about the artist? Support these opinions with discussing the composition, line, tone, colours, materials and techniques.
The following artists particularly illustrate some of the themes listed above within their work:
Written Starting Points:
Spill, drop or break: Dana Schutz, Eddie Martinez, Virgile Ittah, Pure Evil
Present: Finbar Ward, Francis Upritchard
Chrome: Richard Wilson, Justin Matherly, Sara Barker
Headdress: Eddie Martinez
Dental care: Alexander Tinei
Mobile: Makiko Kudo, Andra Ursuta
Profile: Tanyth Berkley, Martin Poppe, Tom Gidley
Geometric Patterns: Dominic Beattie, George Little
Couples: Nathan Mabry
Trees: Makiko Kudo, Marianne Vitale
Spill, drop or break
Dana Schutz Gallery 4
In Dana Schutz’s painting, Reformers, we see a scene of chaos, a
moment in time where objects fall from the central figure’s feet
through the break in the table and drop onto the ground. This
composition of chaos makes the viewer intrigued and question - what
is happening here? Is something being created or destroyed?
Dana Schutz proves that painting can both represent reality and
destroy it at the same time. She sets up scenarios that the viewer can
easily recognise whilst depicting sinister disruptions to ordinary
scenes. Schutz takes the order of humanity and creates scenes of
disorder and hopelessness.
The Brooklyn-based artist exposes a dark humour in scenes which
describe both everyday social settings and implausible events. One
painting takes an ordinary family picnic and transforms the figures and
food so that they are cut into by zig-zagging black lines, that seem to
be memories disappearing of cut out figures being burned (Singed
Picnic).
Her vivid paintings mix reality with fiction to create chaos or discordance. She manages to simultaneously describe an event and the
experience itself. In doing so she turns emotional states such as embarrassment, fear, tension, etc, into literal descriptions.
Schutz has cited 20th century German painters such as Otto Dix and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner as early influences on her own work, something
which is evident in her bold, expressive mark making, bright colours and attention to detail. She applies a European style of painting,
historically attached to artists commenting on politics and society, to humorous depictions of contemporary American life.
Eddie Martinez Gallery 3
Splatter, fracture, pieces, splash, smash, chaos, abundance, rule breaking, confusion, unrestrained, Headdresses
Eddie Martinez’s techniques and processes can be related to the theme of Spill,
Drop or break. The sheer volume of marks, colours, materials, objects and
characters in his paintings suggest chaos and confusion. Eddie Martinez breaks
traditional rules and juxtaposes the past and the present within his paintings.
Eddie Martinez’s paintings epitomise restless energy; collage, oil paint, spray paint,
paint splatters and drips are applied with frantic immediacy guided, but not
restrained, by technique. Drawing on the tradition of the gestural mark, Martinez
seems to hint at his forebears (de Kooning, Picasso, even Da Vinci’s The Last Supper)
and popular culture (Donald Duck appears at the dinner table in The Feast), but the
result is his own, disentangled from the past. The overabundance of food in The
Feast runs parallel to the visual feast of Martinez’s paintings, in which no surface is
left alone.
Characters are created with lively mark making, allowing them to evolve during the
process like thinking aloud, eventually uniting as recognisable forms. This method
of layering and effacing the surface is transferred from his practice as a graffiti artist
in New York and creates figures which suggest contemporary hieroglyphics. There is
a compulsion to enliven every area, giving his work its relentless dynamism, while
retaining a somewhat surrealist sense of mysterious event.
Virgile Ittah New Order II
Fall, leak, escape, split, fracture, pieces, damage, liquids/solids, fragile, gravity
Virgile Ittah’s sculptures are constructed from wax mixed with white spirit, which
allows the material to maintain its flexibility. The figure gradually succumbs to
gravity, slumping towards the floor. The material shifts and drops during the
process of sculpting. This creates a distorted representation of the human figure.
The title of Virgile Ittah’s sculpture Untitled (for man would remember each
murmur) seems to reference the presence of the past in daily life, through the
echo chamber of memory and nostalgia. Time – its passing, its wounds and
residues – is built in to Ittah’s process as a sculptor.
The use of wax recalls its early usage when it was mixed with pigment in Roman
Egyptian tomb portraits, as well as its association with candles. Elegy, transience
and mortality seem embedded in the material itself. Ittah also adds a mixture of
white pigment and marble dust, which is a reference to classical sculpture.
However, the distorted form and fludity of the sculptures contrasts to the
techniques of classical sculpture.
Ittah has spoken of her interest in ‘fake whiteness’, such as that found in the
Venetian Ghetto, where Jews, forbidden by the city to use of real marble to
decorate their synagogues, used painted marble instead (‘marmorino’). Through
this, the artist refers to Jewish history and her own Jewish cultural heritage.
Pure Evil Edition & Print Gallery
Fall, leak, escape, splash, liquids/solids, gravity
Pure Evil’s work extends beyond the canvas. A paint strip
runs down the face, outside the frame, dropping down the
wall ending in a blob of paint on the floor. Pure Evil draws
upon his background in street art, he uses spray paint,
stencils and sharpies to create the original painting. Screen
printing is used to produce copies to be exhibited and sold.
The paint dripping down the face appears to be tears.
However, the falling tears contrast with the facial
expressions of the famous figures. The artist intends to
explore celebrity culture, Pure Evil says ‘I am making a kind
of ‘copy village’ celebrating the dark side of celebrity
workshop.’
The artist is fascinated by modern society’s access and
exposure to multiple media sources and images. His work
explores the idea of copying and reproducing art and the
impact that it has on the value of the original.
From his base in east London Pure Evil continues to make a
significant contribution to the increasing influence of street
art upon mainstream culture. With the Nightmare Series
Pure Evil has exploited the power of iconic images, added
his unique twist and sent them back out into the world
refreshed and renewed. This exhibition includes recent
original work, hand-finished unique prints and limited
edition prints.
Present
Finbar Ward New Order II
Wrapping, packaging, labels, surprise, unusual, reveal/unrevealed, 3D structures,
Ward combines both painting and sculpture within his work. He
places painted canvases within minimalistic sculptures. In
Chamber, a canvas of rich dark blue is placed on layered wooden
structures. Through combining both traditional canvas and
minimalistic sculptures, Ward poses the question of what is a
painting? How should it be hung? Is it still a painting if it is lying
horizontally?
When the viewer looks at Chamber, we are intrigued as it
appears to be a box slightly open. The position of the top layer
which is out of line with the wooden structures below create this
sense of mystery and intrigue for the viewer. The viewer may
want to peer into the box, walk around it and crouch down to
inspect it. Therefore, the viewer is physically engaged with the
piece.
Francis Uprichard Gallery 7
wrapping, surprise, unusual, personal, special occasions, reveal/unrevealed
Francis Upritchard is a New Zealand born, London- based sculptor who makes small-scale work
ranging from displays of found objects to rainbow-coloured corpses. The Misanthrope is hunched
over, feeble and fragile, hiding beneath a lurid cloak; he appears to be protecting himself from
something in the world, but at the same time provokes a sense of curiosity, bringing into question
his scale, the bright colour of his skin and clothing, and the totemic relevance of the small chain
dangling from his pocket. There is strong evidence, as with much of Upritchard’s work, of a very
handmade quality – combining hints of various cultural and historical references - the result of
which borders on a faked antiquity. The tie-dyed colours and ephemera we associate with 1960s
counterculture is re-imagined in human form, to the point where this figure becomes the
embodiment of embellished versions of history merging with commercialised spirituality.
Chrome
Justin Matherly Gallery 4
Shine, machine, vehicle, electroplate, man- made, architecture, industrial machinery, medical instrument
Brooklyn-based Justin Matherly is best known for his large scale sculptures inspired
by Ancient Greek and Roman statues, reinterpreted with contemporary materials. In
these smaller works distorted forms are contorted around, and supported by
ambulatory frames which at first glance appear to be clinical and severe. The walking
frames offer a substitute for the traditional plinth and also reference the affects of
age and deterioration on the human body. Matherly permits the surface of the
concrete to be rough and scratchy, allowing the unpredictable casting methods to
take effect, deliberately unlike the smooth contours of classical sculpture and
statues. Instead of presenting incomplete body parts he manipulates lumpy limbs
into abstract forms and lets the concrete become cracked and brittle, while the
metal walkers suggest enforced assistance and support, calling for the viewer’s
sympathy rather than adoration. In doing this, he pays homage to the origins of
technical sculpture, but allows failure, and addresses the problems inherent in
looking to the past for inspiration and direction.
Richard Wilson
Shine, machine, vehicle, man- made, architecture, industrial machinery, reflective, mirror, polish
20:50
Site Specific Oil Installation: 1987, used sump oil
and steel, dimensions variable
Richard Wilson is one of Britain's most celebrated sculptors. He is
known for his interventions in architectural space which draw
heavily for their inspiration from the worlds of engineering and
construction and are characterised by concerns with size and
structural daring.
20:50 has been exhibited in a number of different sites (see image
below). The oil fills and consumes the architectural space. An
illusion is created with the highly reflective surface of the oil. On
first impression, the viewer questions their perception of space; it
takes time to adjust our understanding to the architectural space.
The viewer also questions whether the surface is solid or liquid; it
plays with our perception of form and materials.
Sara Barker New Order I (see Saatchi website)
Shine, machine, man- made, architecture, industrial machinery, reflective, mirror, polish
Sara Barker’s works don’t simply breach the boundaries between
painting and sculpture, they are that boundary. Skeletal structures
in aluminium and steel describe wonky rectangular shapes in the air
in hesitant lines, as though uncertain of themselves; their forms are
those of sketches, not sculptures. Their surfaces are then coated
with layers of oil paint, gouache and watercolour in the blanched
and airy palette of a landscape painting.
Barker draws her inspiration from the lines, shapes and forms of
paintings. One work is named after Matisse’s 1916 painting ‘The
Piano Lesson’. The work of other artists feed into Barker’s process
as she reinterprets 2D into 3D.
Dental care
Alexander Tinei Gallery 8
A grinning woman with a beehive hairdo and 60s spectacles
plays an accordion. Alexander Tinei’s painting is based on a
photograph– note the slight blurring of the instrument.
Tinei’s work frequently draws on his childhood in Soviet
Moldova, where Russian language and culture blotted out local
identity; his mining of the past seems a rooting out of personal
truth.
Here, the beaming accordionist of Music Teacher is streaked
with blue lines like tattoos. The contrast is both a comic one – a
child’s revenge on an adult, maybe – and an indication of a
deeper presence beyond the self-evident. Tinei employs the
blue lines in many of his works: they act as markers of inner
life. Whether this is a spiritual, emotional or historical truth is
never obvious to the viewer.
Mobile
Makiko Kudo Gallery 2
Moving, swinging, changing, fluid, flexible, travelling, movement,
Makiko Kudo’s lonely figures float and tumble through
landscapes of lush, brightly coloured plant life like lost children
in fairy tales. Unlike real scenes, Kudo’s imagined places draw
on her own dreams and memories, freely reconstructing and
organising them through painting. Like memory, canvases are
patchy, with areas left barely painted. Allusions to a tradition
of escape, from Monet to Gauguin, are referenced here;
running away from contemporary woes into childlike fantasy,
and, with her specific Japanese cultural context, into the
immersive world of computer games and Manga comics.
Kudo’s childhood within the socially conservative and
economically depressed environment of late twentieth-century
Japan, led her and many of her generation into a detached
existence. In this way, the figure, lying across a swan in Floating
Island or sitting alone amidst the twisted limbs of trees in
Invisible, might become the artist’s alter-ego, like a character
in a game. What might first appear purely sentimental,
acquires a resonant force due to the value of escape for artist
and viewer alike.
Andra Ursuta Gallery 10
Moving, swinging, changing, fluid, flexible, travelling, movement, speed
Andra Ursuta’s installation, Vandal Lust, consists of a
catapult, damage to the gallery wall and a flattened
figure. It is the still aftermath of a violent act.
Ursuta references the work of Russian artist, Ilya
Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew Into Space from his
Apartment in 1984. It reflects a similar theme of
wishing to escape to Soviet Union. Ursuta explores
her cultural and personal identity within Vandal Lust.
Yet it is darkly comic too, the artist expressed the
influence of slap stick comedy.
Ursuta is Romanian; she currently lives and works in
New York. Her work often explores the contrast of
her childhood of Soviet Romania to her current
environment. She says, ‘I’m from a very different
place. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ignore that.
[USA] starkly contrasts the environment in Eastern
Europe.’
Profile
Tanyth Berkeley Gallery 8
composition, layout, space
These photographs portray both biological and transgendered
women. These subjects come from a cross-section of innercity societies, who have been outcast and suffered hardships,
but who have survived. Traditional values of beauty are
discarded. This work can be intended as a study of femininity,
of bodily curves, dress, make-up and flowers that invites the
viewer to ponder their own response questioning traditional
notions of beauty. The process of selection of the models, met
in subways and streets, links the practice of documentary and
art photography. In Berkeley’s work, whether shot on the
street or in mysterious interiors, there is both a sense of
theatrical staging and spontaneity. Her photographs
simultaneously recall the Renaissance portrait and the
contemporary street-style snap, which both share a love of
exhibitionism and selective self-expression.
Martin Poppe
Gallery 13 (New Order II)
composition, layout, space
In Martine Poppe’s paintings, something has happened to the image. It is as
though you are seeing it from behind veils of gauze, or that it has been
reproduced so many times it has lost its colour. Painted onto restoration
fabric, a support the artist chose specifically for its translucency, Poppe’s
paintings seem illuminated from behind, like images laid on a light table
waiting to be copied. An investigation of the copying of images is in fact a
central part of Poppe’s practice. She selects images notable for their ambiguity
and translates them with deliberate vagueness, as though willing herself not to
see the source image clearly. The collective title of this group of works,
Analogical Change, underscores the strange transformation of original to copy:
it is a term used in linguistics to describe an invented word based on learned
principles of language (‘goose’ becomes ‘geeses’, ‘sheep’ becomes ‘sheeps’).
Poppe’s altered copies play out analogical change in visual terms. Her copies,
though recognisable, aren’t quite the same as the originals from which they
derive, something’s off.
Tom Gidley Gallery 14
composition, layout, space
Tom Gidley’s work recast the gallery space as crime scene, obliging the
viewer to unpick and find meaning in his startling combinations of two and
three-dimensional objects. These different fragments drag the wrong
footed viewer into play, and oblige him to situate the objects in a
narrative, which slithers away when lunged for. The ceramic sculptures
and the painting establish a dialogue between two different textures, and
express the uncertainty about the artist’s authentic voice. In Pacifist, a
monochrome painted portrait is surmounted by a glazed ceramic form like
an oyster shell, which seems to have dribbled down the painting’s surface,
part erasing the young man’s features. Meaning is gathered through a
process of both creating and curating.
Geometric Patterns
Dominic Beattie Gallery 12
shapes, repetition, rotation, minimalism
Dominic Beattie’s work plays with the composition of geometrical
forms in an original way: forms are pure and abstract, whereas
materials are deliberately perishable and wonky. Different
fragments of different textures are juxtaposed, and every material
displays its own eccentric qualities. The homemade quality of these
arrangements creates a tension with the high minded formalism of
the tradition of abstraction and homespun crafts.
George Little
The composition of Unsettled life, Henri’s, is a re-imagined
interpretation of Henri Matisse’s style. The fruit is similar to
Matisse’s experimental paintings made around World War I.
However, the composition breaks up the form of the fruit and
distorts it. In the background of the composition, Modernist
wallpaper gathers in rolls on the floor, as if mid-way through
decorating yet the development of a repeated pattern is clear. It is
evident that Little is inspired and refers to the modernist avantgarde within his work.
Couples
Nathan Mabry Gallery 3
LA based Nathan Mabry’s sculptures present the viewer with a visual shock before
revealing their more subtle meanings. The sculptures bring together two uniquely
different styles from the history of western and ancient art: Minimalist sculpture
and ancient Peruvian Moche sculptures. Mabry uses enduring materials such as
bronze and steel to create monumental pieces with lasting power. Mabry combines
the clear order and organisation of geometric minimalism with ancient figures that
are frozen in an emotional moment. The incongruent features of these sculptures
are brought together by the materials they are cast in; the metal binds the ideas
together literally and symbolically.
Established concepts of what separates sculpture from plinth are abandoned as
both elements are carefully crafted from the same material, creating a link which is
humorously disrespectful of traditional ideas in the history of art.
Mabry takes the history and order of visual culture and cheekily subverts it, by
wilfully ignoring traditional rules. He is in fact using the visual order and
organisation of a modernist style to create disorder and disruption.
This yin and yang approach is juxtaposed with Surrealist mischief; in A Very
Touching Moment (Pitching A Tent), we are presented with two deathly looking
figures embracing in an unorthodox kiss, and embedded in their grinning teeth is a
jewel like totem that glints at the viewer. Mabry’s desire for transformation
presents a cross-cultural clash which fuses the history of western art with the
ethnographic associations of ancient work from another time and culture,
questioning western aesthetic values.
Trees
(see Makiko Kudo on page 13)
Marianne Vitale Gallery 5
Marianne Vitatle’s series Markers consists of reclaimed wood carved into
the shape of tombstones. Each stands at the same height and is of the
same design, yet remains individual, literally carrying the burns, scrapes
and cuts of their previous existence, whether they were once part of a
factory floor or a beam from an old barn house. We are presented with a
natural material that has been bruised and abused before being
remodelled then arranged into a uniform display. The graves stand
formally ordered in the gallery like proud soldiers on parade, wearing
their scars like war wounds. This installation references the theatricality
and geometry of minimalist sculpture by the likes of Carl Andre and
Donald Judd, but retains an emotional content allowing the materials to
reveal past histories. In Markers, Vitale achieves an anthropomorphic
transformation as these gravestones become stand-ins for human bodies;
they are both a tribute to the deceased and the deceased themselves.