September Monthly Themes
Hello Everyone!
I hope everyone is doing well and got the results you hoped for on exams if you had them! Thank you for all the amazing art from last month and just in general :) This post is actually a bit late because yesterday, after spending 4 hours researching and writing the post and themes, my teams decided to crash and delete the post I made as I was uploading it. Hope is not all lost because the research I did will be incorporated into a later activity that I hope everyone will enjoy!
That aside here are the themes for this month:
1) Reflections
In art, reflections can describe both a artistic technique, where an image is mirrored, and conceptual idea, where you use your work to explore and express your own emotions, experiences, and ideas.
For this month, explore both facets of reflections, experimenting with reflecting back both your subject and your thoughts in your piece.
You can use reflections in which ever way you want; symmetrical mirror images, a doubled mirage in water, draw or use mirror surfaces, a self-portrait, or anything you can imagine that incorporates a reflection.
2) Surrealism
Led by André Breton, who published The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, Surrealism was an artistic and literary movement that thrived in Europe between World Wars I and II. Emerging from the earlier Dada movement, it shifted from anti-art negation to positive expression. Surrealism aimed to merge the conscious and unconscious into a “surreality,” drawing on Freud’s theories and viewing the unconscious as the source of true imagination.
Surrealists believed that bypassing reason could reveal hidden truths and challenge everyday reality. Techniques like automatism (the artist suppresses conscious control over the making process), frottage (technique that involves rubbing pencil, graphite, chalk, crayon, or another medium onto a sheet of paper that has been placed on top of a textured object or surface to translate the objects form), and exquisite corpse (where artists takes turns writing or drawing on a sheet of paper, folding it to conceal his or her contribution, and then passing it to the next player for a further contribution) allowed artists to create uncensored imagery.
Surrealist paintings often combine realistic details with irrational juxtapositions to evoke dreamlike or uncanny effects. Though highly individual in style, Surrealist art has the shared the aim of disrupting conventional thought, provoking psychic discovery, and merging imagination with lived experience.
For this theme, experiment with incorporating surrealist techniques, images, and style into your piece.
3) Loneliness
Loneliness is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as being without company, separated from others. It is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation.
The effects and condition of being lonely has been explored in numerous ways in art history. This theme tasks you to explore your understanding or experience of loneliness in your own way.
These are all the themes for this month - I can't wait to see what everyone creates