AQA GCSE Art and Design Themes 2019

Resource Pack

Themes:

Texture feeling · surface · rough · smooth · appearance · touch · finish · consistency

Natural Forms nature · fossils · debris · foliage · imprints · delicate

Messages words · images · meaning · gossip · contradiction · new · opposition · stories · Morse code ·

communication · letters · hidden · digital · myth · truth and lies · history · knowledge · themes · undertones

The elements weather · harsh · nature · origins · wet · dry

Working employment · method · revising · earning · hard · enjoyable · necessary · occupied

My surroundings self · location · environment · backdrop · familiar

Spaces open · connected · closed · light · dark · degrees · family · emotional · seen · unseen · unbreakable ·

place · galaxy · touchable

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 through testing, reflect and record their work in writing and practical

outcomes and present their work to reflect the theme running through it.

Consider how the artist has made the work.

Look at what materials have they used.

Why do you think they used these materials?

Do you think the medium effectively portrays the concept/ theme of the work?

Do you think there is more than one theme in the work?

Do you see inspiration/ influences from other artists, art movements or events in the work?

The following artists in Black Mirror particularly illustrate some of the themes listed above:

Texture Alejandra Prieto/ Valerie Hegarty/ Aaron Fowler/ Steve Bishop/ Justin Craun/ Roman Stanczak/ Des Hughes/ Wendy Mayer/

Marianne Vitale

Natural Forms Steve Bishop/ Des Hughes/ John Stezaker/ Aleksandra Mir

Messages David Herbert/ Michael Cline/ Bedwyr Williams/ James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ Gao Brothers/ Scott King/ Simon Bedwell/

Douglas Kolk/ Aleksandra Mir

The Elements Valerie Hegarty/ Dominic McGill/ Aleksandra Mir/ Marianne Vitale

Working Jade Townsend/ Michael Cline/ Jessica Craig-Martin/ James Howard/ Alejandra Prieto/ Dominic McGill/ Clayton Brothers/ Simon

Bedwell/ Des Hughes/ Richard Billingham/ Aleksandra Mir

My Surroundings Jade Townsend/ Bedwyr Williams/ Michael Cline/ Anne Speier/ Jessica Craig-Martin/ James Howard/ Scott King/ Dominic

McGill/ Aaron Fowler/ Clayton Brothers/ Justin Craun/ Roman Stanczak/ Simon Bedwell/ Wendy Mayer/ Richard Billingham/ Marianne

Vitale

Spaces Jade Townsend/ David Herbert/ Bedwyr Williams/ Anne Speier/ Michael Cline/ James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ Valerie Hegarty/

Clayton Brothers/ Justin Craun/ Roman Stanczak/ Wendy Mayer/ John Stezaker/ Richard Billingham/ Aleksandra Mir/ Marianne Vitale/

Douglas Kolk

Messages/ Spaces David Herbert

Herbert makes works to a colossal scale, deliberately

highlighting the scope of his subject matter.

His work focuses on well-known icons and imagery and uses

these to start a discussion about popular culture. Herbert’s work

is humorous and reimagines the well-known, asking the

audience to question how they view things.

His work also challenges viewers to notice alterations, pointing

out how we are often influenced by pop culture. The size of his

work likewise eludes to the significance of the subject matter

and how ‘big’ it’s impact has been on society.

Written messages

Implied messages

Video messages

Messages as stories

The space around an object due to the scale

Messages/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Bedwyr Williams

Williams frequently uses his own autobiographic existence to develop

his sculptures and performances. By doing this he breaks down the

barrier that can sometimes exist between artist and audience.

His work merges art and life with a comedic twist. This makes his

practice relatable and personally insightful for audience members

engaging with the work.

‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’ celebrates diversity, inclusion, and

community. By using objects which are universal, Williams showcases

the values of tolerance and individualism and makes the work relatable

to everyone. The installation invites audience members to try on the

shoes and become a part of the experience. This again plays with the

idea of community and social inclusion.

Written messages

Messages as stories

Social messages

The space around an object/ installation

Spaces that are made smaller between people

Paying attention to my surroundings and those around me

Messages/ My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces Michael Cline

Cline’s pastel coloured paintings depict fables in a contemporary style and setting.

Many of his pieces are reminiscent of George Grosz and Pierre Klossowski’s

paintings. Cline is primarily interested in faith, atonement and the American

Dream. He uses unsullied illustration and dreamlike dystopian scenarios to show

scenes of subtle horror, which add a sense of contrast. His images depict an

imperfect world, where the good, the bad and the ordinary act out narratives of

the artist’s imagining.

Whilst Cline’s paintings are completed with unspoiled innocence, works such as

‘Woman In Doorway’ and ‘Police Line’, address uncomfortable subjects like

violence. The perspective of the work also invites the viewer to enter the locations

and settings and highlights the open secrets and closed-door gossip which exists

within the paintings.

Each painting tells a different story and a different message

Characters who are involved in their surroundings

Characters who are working

Confined and open spaces (both domestic and outdoors or local)

My Surroundings/ Spaces Anne Speier

Speier’s work is made up of

experimental collage. She will use

glossy colour against B&W to show

contrast and juxtapose images of food

with illustrated characters.

Many of the images are comical

recreations of scenes the artist has

observed in real life.

Speier will combine the ordinary with

the ridiculous, in order to show the

invented and often self-imposed

absurdity of many social interactions.

Using images of food for the bodies

adds humour but also highlights the

domestic setting. These are items

which also influence people and are a

staple in their lives.

Domestic spaces

Spaces between characters

The characters and their surroundings

Working/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Jade Townsend

Whilst the medium is important in Townsend’s work, it is the meaning which

is the focus. Townsend uses satire to explore the idea of the “Boomtown”

and how it can influence our activities and our art. He is interested in the

concept of ‘the art fair’ and how it may have become a parody of itself.

Townsend also plays with space and form, questioning how people react

when viewing work. His work looks to go beyond language, culture, class and

history. Instead his work is constructed in a way which refuses to conform.

• Working in a different way

Working methods

• Showing characters surroundings

• Questioning my surroundings as the audience

The way in which the work reacts with the space it is in

My Surroundings/ Working Jessica Craig-Martin

Craig-Martin uses her link photographing for

Vanity Fair magazine within her own practice.

She plays with composition, often cropping out

the recognisable features of celebrities and the

rich, so they cannot be acknowledged or

glorified. Instead she focuses on their cigarettes

and wrinkled hands, which serves as a stark

contrast against the sparkling jewels and high-

end fashion they are clad in.

Craig-Martin’s photographs offer a candid

glimpse at the seemingly seedy underbelly of the

elite. They comment on society’s obsession with

surface and materialism and ask the viewer to

reassess the way they view the rich. The strong

flash lighting and bleeding saturation of the

colours add to the intensity of the images.

Working in a different way

Showing characters surroundings

Questioning my surroundings and social expectations

Messages/ My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces James Howard

Howard uses real text

and image taken from

spam emails found in

his own email junk

folder. He employs

collage to combine the

images and create a

new narrative with

them. In wanting to

keep true to how real

hackers work, Howard uses Photoshop and other kinds of graphic software, in order to create his collages. His work is bright and full

of endless information. The endless narrative of the combined images leads the viewer to feel overwhelmed and saturated, mimicking

the same effect endless junk mail can have. His work is constantly being processed and he often works with urgency in order to try

and collect and use as much information as he can before it disappears.

His work acts like an on-going social commentary, highlighting the vulnerability of the individual and of society as a whole.

Visual and text based messages

Messages as truth or lies

My surroundings as the user and my vulnerability

Working methods of the artist

Working through information

Personal space

Spaces in real life and on the Web

Spaces and layout of work

Texture/ Working Alejandra Prieto

Prieto uses coal to explore themes linked to industrialisation. Her aim

is to reinstate the value of the coal and transform it into an object of

importance again. During the process of including coal within her work,

she discovered a machine which used water to cut through the earthy

substance. Using water to cut the coal makes the material reflective,

which inspired the artist to make a mirror. The scale of the mirror in

turn adds to the idea of vanity, opulence and wealth, thus reinstating

the value of the coal as a high end object. Her work in turn highlights

the paradox of material vs object. During the process Prieto discovered

that the Pre-Columbian civilisation had also used coal to make mirrors.

Smooth texture

Rough texture

Altered texture

Working methods

Working in industry

Messages/ The Elements/ Working/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Dominic McGill

McGill often works on an epic scale, incorporating elements

of collage, drawn imagery and a swirling sea of text. The text

in McGill’s work is sourced from a variety of locations

including clichés, sayings and political speeches. Words and

phrases collide with one another adding a sense of contrast

and implied contradiction. The size of his work makes you

feel like you are entering the eye of a brainstorm when you

stand before it. The use of B&W also emphasises a feeling of

information sharing, like in the press or newspapers.

Written and visual messages

Implied messages

Messages which compliment and contradict one another

Illustrations of the elements and the messages these evoke

Working methods

Illustrations of different types of work

My surroundings and how they exist

Spaces which are filled and compact

Texture/ The Elements/ Spaces Valerie Hegarty

The process of destruction rather than creation is most

important in Hegarty’s work. Her pieces pose as

artefacts when they are actually reproductions. The

‘broken’ paintings on display take inspiration from

Frederick Church’s ‘Niagara Falls’ (pictured) and works

by Thomas Moran. As she makes them she falsifies the

ruination of her pieces, giving them the appearance of

artefacts gone awry.

Hegarty’s practice centres on the politics of the

‘American myth’, exploring themes of colonialism, the

hero and antique design work.

A strong link between 2D and 3D form also exists within

the work, with the hint of the ‘original’ painting twisting and morphing into a tangeld 3D mass. This relationship between 2D and 3D

is important in hinting at the suggested strength of the painted image and how it has overpowered the format of the work.

Rough/ damaged texture vs smooth texture

Painting of the elements

Sculpture of the elements

The exhibition space and how it is filled by work

How space is effected by form in work

Messages/ My Surroundings Scott King

King originally trained as a Graphic Designer. His work often explores

product, desire and message, looking at how iconic images can become

detached and reduced to representational information.

His work explores political themes and uses installation, photography,

and print to highlight a sense of journalistic image capturing. They are

often tongue in cheek and playful in appearance.

Implied messages

Humorous messages

My surroundings as the viewer and how I fit into the work

Messages Gao Brothers

Brothers Gao Shen and Gao Qiang work together

to create parodied political scenes, which often

include images of Chairman Mao. Their work is

influenced by their own upbringing in China with

much of their work now censored there.

They use a variety of materials and media

including photography, performance art and

sculpture. They believe photography allows them

to over develop their imagination, exploring the

tangible gap between reality and imaginings.

Humour is often a central theme within their

work, used to provoke and highlight elements within modern Chinese history. The use of B&W in the image pictured above also adds

a documentary style feeling to the work, further blurring the lines between reality and satire.

Humorous messages

Political messages

Texture/ Natural Forms Steve Bishop

Bishop often uses methods of taxidermy to create his work. He makes his

pieces as “containers for something”. They are also an “embodiment”.

This notion of a sculpture being an object but also a vessel, relates to

‘idolatry’. In combining different materials Bishop highlights the idea of

opposites and how they work together. This includes combining

taxidermy and concrete, where to see the soft fur of an animal matted in

amongst hard concrete becomes quite jarring. The white colour palette in

the piece pictured here also explores the idea of purity.

The piece ‘It’s Hard to Make a Stand’ in contrast explores the process of

readymade assemblage, with the horse made entirely out of foam. In ‘It’s

Hard to Make a Stand’ Bishop is interested in how objects and materials

can function by themselves.

Soft texture against hard texture

Multiple textures

Natural forms in the form of a real goat (which has been

preserved through the use of taxidermy)

Natural forms vs man made objects

My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces Clayton Brothers

Brothers Christian and Rob Clayton use

painting and installation to create their

work. There is no direct planning in

their work. Instead they work intuitively

to create intensely compacted images,

full of narrative and energy.

Though they work together, the

brothers rarely work on the same

canvas at the same time, nor do they

discuss their work. They will add to and

edit the pieces as they go along, adding

a sense of the communal to the

individual. The way the artist’s work

also adds intensity to the layering of the

paint, with different forms of mark

making explored and interwoven.

The work takes inspiration from their

local environment in California with a

laundrette the setting for the painting pictured above. Motifs, places, figures and gestures reoccur in different paintings, creating a

linked series.

The characters and their surroundings

The artists and their surroundings

Working environment

Working methods

Busy, energetic and active spaces

My Surroundings/ Texture Aaron Fowler

Fowler’s action-packed figurative

surfaces are almost Matisse like in their

flat decorative treatment of space. His

starting point often comes from one of

his own photographs, which captures a

moment or episode in his life. He

incorporates 3D objects into collages,

constructed from various pieces of

furniture and objects sourced from his

local surroundings. By doing this he

injects and includes a lot of himself and

his own environment into the work. Each

piece depicts a narrative based on events

from his own personal history. Many of

these personal experiences are horrific or

violent in nature and provoked Fowler to

become an artist.

He wants the viewer to connect with a

“world that may not be familiar” Fowler.

The characters and their surroundings

The artist and his surroundings

Multiple textures

My Surroundings/ Texture/ Space Justin Craun

Craun’s work combines an electric colour

palette with geometric shapes to make

intensely packed scenes.

His paintings always feature human figures,

exploring the interior lives of others and

whether these can be captured and

communicated in an image.

His work sarcastically depicts modern people

in social media ready poses.

There is a sense of realism to his hallucinatory

paintings, which sometimes mimics Picasso’s

‘Primitivism’.

Whilst the colours are bright and sweet in

their saturation, there is a sense of

uneasiness and even drama. Many of the

figures look trapped or staged, as though they are stuck in varying social moments or narratives they cannot escape. Craun is

particularly interested in how social pressures influence people. The predominately pink colour palette in this painting also plays on

the fact that all frozen characters are female.

The characters and their surroundings

Smooth textures and rough textures

Spaces which are layered and structured

Static spaces

My Surroundings/ Working/ Messages Simon Bedwell

Bedwell’s work has an element of fiction

vs fact. He continually engages in a

process of arranging and rearranging to

expose what was previously subliminal in

his found imagery.

Some of his posters have intertwined the

original commercial content so deeply

with the artist’s fictional and aesthetic

alterations that it is hard to detect what

came first. His posters combine found

image and text with those of his own

invention. He uses ClipArt and WordArt

software to make his work, keeping true

to many of the methods used in

advertising. He will also scavenge and

reuse torn posters from billboards, bins

and thrift stores, giving his work a sense

of timeless authenticity.

The characters and their surroundings

The artist and his surroundings

The audience and their surroundings

Working methods

Alerted messages

My Surroundings/ Texture/ Space Roman Stanczak

Stanczak was one of the young

artists involved in the ‘Forge’

movement. The ‘Forge’ was a

collective in Warsaw, which was the

home of the 1990s ‘Critical Art’

phenomenon. This movement took

the human body and made it into a

site of power within artistic practice.

Stanczak uses domestic objects and

fills them with traces of the human

body. This includes sweat and blood

which act as temporary stand-ins.

He brutalises his work, destroying its

fabric. He says this prepares him for

the journey of life to death. By using

domestic items, Stanczak makes the

work relatable to the audience and

asks them to reconsider the way

they view the objects and themselves within their own domestic environment.

The audience and their surroundings

The artists and their surroundings

Rough or broken textures

Smooth textures

Domestic spaces, which have an impact on our lives

Natural Forms/ Space John Stezaker

Stezaker plays with the fabric of photography. He re-

examines the audience’s relationship with it, questioning

whether it’s a documentation, a memory or a symbol of

modern culture.

His works are photo collages, using found image to create

‘ready-mades’. He gathers images, with his collection

currently containing more than 300,000 photographs.

Stezaker’s work is playful but highly effective in prompting

the viewer to consider identity.

In his ‘Marriage’ series, Stezaker fuses together images of

men and women, creating new identities. In the ‘Mask’

series, he creates new faces by overlaying images of

landscapes or buildings and playing on the subject matter

within the image. The end result is an optical illusion where

trees become mouths and bridges become eyes.

Natural forms evident in altered states (as faces)

The space between reality and fiction

The space and layout of two images, which come together

to form one new image

Texture/ Working Des Hughes

Hughes loves to defy conventions and

assumptions about his work. He will

often deliberately manipulate materials

to take on the appearance of one

another.

He is interested in blurring the lines

between the way the object looks and

what it is actually made out of. The

viewer must work to understand the art

and open themselves up to the

confusion it may cause.

The piece pictured here is an example of

how the surface of the body has been

manipulated to look like textured wool

or fabric but is in fact made out of resin.

His work asks the audience to look and

look again.

Altered texture

Rough texture

Smooth texture

Working methods

Making the audience work to understand the materials which have been used

My Surroundings/ Texture/ Space Wendy Mayer

Mayer’s work manipulates both the viewer’s sense of

scale and their relationship with the human form.

Because of the miniature size of her sculptures, the

audience does not just observe the work, they also

compare it to themselves and the space they are in. This

leads to a sense of the unquiet in her work as the scale

forces the audience to kneel and view the work like a

child might, leaving them somewhat vulnerable.

Her sculptures are hyper realistic, again prompting the

audience to draw comparisons between themselves and

the forms they encounter.

The piece pictured to the left pays homage to artist

Louise Bourgeois.

The audience and their surroundings

The artists and their surroundings

Rough or feathered textures

Smooth textures

The space in which the audience must view the

work

Massages/ Space Douglas Kolk

Douglas Kolk uses large scale

collage to create overlapping

and endless dialogues within

his work. He draws

inspiration from comic books

and pulp novel covers. His

pieces are densely packed

and full of information, which

arrive from various angles

and sources. The images

present delicate ideas of

identity and tainted virtue.

This use of overloaded

imagery replicates the feeling

of being blasted with

information. This is reflective of many people’s experience in contemporary urban life. There is a feeling of narrative within the work

but with the clamour and confusion of the composition, it feels hard to find and follow it. The imagery also resembles the process of

channel-surfing on the TV, where the viewer faces a barrage of information in broken and unfinished stages. The use of text in Kolk’s

work adds another layer of concentration in that it demands to be read. In ‘Country Road’ images are swapped and interwoven, so

nothing is any one thing.

Visual messages

Mixed messages

Written messages

Tight, layered or condensed space

My Surroundings/ Working/ Spaces Richard Billingham

Billingham’s photographs were borne of a need

to have a reference point for starting his

paintings. Billingham's original photographs

were printed in B&W. What started as a point

of reference for Billingham became an

exploration of himself, his family and his

upbringing. His photographs are candid,

offering an observation of the artist’s private

life. His images are introspective and

confessional. The continual series of snap shot

imagery builds a peephole narrative. The

images are sincere and real. They trace time

and the domestic setting in a strikingly honest

way. Though specifically about Billingham’s

family, the content and familiar domestic scene

makes the work instantly relatable to the

viewer. The work has also been shot so the

viewer feels like they are spectating living moments. Billingham was nominated for the Turner Prize with his photo series ‘Ray’s

a Laugh’, coining of the phrase “squalid realism”.

The audience and their surroundings

The artists and their surroundings

Working class

Working methods

Domestic spaces, which have an impact on our lives

Natural Forms/ Messages/ The Elements/ Working/ Spaces Aleksandra Mir

Mir works in B&W, thus mimicking

and parodying newspapers and the

press.

Her work is large in scale and

incorporates strong bold text with

illustration.

The font is often playful, which

masks the frequently dark political/

historical themes being explored,

but there is definitely a sense of

history being told.

Mir works collaboratively,

sometimes sketching out the bones

of the work before a team fills it in.

Her assistants often took on

humorous titles like ‘The

Supervisor of Paper Cutting and

Protector of Fingertips’ and ‘Secretary of Finesse’. The strong contrast of the B&W emphasises the contrast between hot and cold,

light and dark and good and evil.

Illustrations of natural forms

Implied messages

Political or historical messages

Illustrations of the elements

Working methods, including working with others

The space between light and dark

Texture/ The Elements/ My Surroundings/ Spaces Marianne Vitale

Vitale has used a range of materials

throughout her artistic career but now

largely uses reclaimed wood from derelict

structures found around the USA.

The ‘Burned Bridges’ series (pictured)

plays on the saying “don’t burn your

bridges”. Their broken and charred nature

evokes sadness. This feeds into Vitale’s

exploration of American concepts about

land, loneliness, posterity and death.

Many of her pieces are filmed thus trying

to achieve her own posterity as well as

injecting a sense of performance into the

work.

How the elements effect manmade structures

The artists and their surroundings

Rough or broken textures

The space in which the work finds itself

The space the audience must navigate to explore the work