OCR AS Art and Design Themes 2019

Resource Pack

Themes:

Brown colour · earthy · autumn · nature · leather · food · paint · paper · tone · brunette

Botany plants · nature · flowers · exotic · soil · growth · colour · living · travel · art · colonisation · gardening

Conflict fighting · war · words · brutality · disagreement · trouble · battles · anger · clash

Light bright · sun · stars · natural light · bulbs · candles · shades · light vs dark · graceful · airy

Knots tight · laces · ropes · together · bound · security · ties · loose · nautical

Industrial machinery · mechanical · technology · development · environment · progress · workers ·

management · resources (natural and made made) · business · industrial revolution

Appliances domestic · aides · resources · kitchen · bathroom · electrical · purpose · design · technology

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:

Brown Michael Cline/ Bedwyr Williams/ Anne Speier/ Jessica Craig-Martin/ James Howard/ Aaron Fowler/

Clayton Brothers/ Roman Stanczak/ Des Hughes

Botany James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ John Stezaker

Conflict Michael Cline/ James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ John Stezaker

Light Michael Cline/ Bedwyr Williams/ James Howard/ Dominic McGill/ Simon Bedwell/ Aleksandra Mir

Knots Michael Cline/ Bedwyr Williams/ Dominic McGill/ Clayton Brothers

Industrial Alejandra Prieto/ Marianne Vitale

Appliances Anne Speier/ Michael Cline/ James Howard/ Roman Stanczak

Brown/ Light/ Knots 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.

Brown coloured shoes

Brown leather

Light humour, making the work accessible to the audience

Knots in shoelaces

Brown/ Conflict/ Light/ Knots/ Appliances 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.

Earthy brown tonal range used throughout paintings

Physical conflict and acts of conflict

Strong lighting in rooms to highlight intensity

Lights and lampshades as appliances

Knotted interactions and human features

Brown/ Appliances 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.

Brown bread

Brown colour

Domestic appliances implied through the imagery of ‘toast’ and ‘egg bodies’

Brown/ Botany/ Conflict/ Light/ Appliances 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.

Brown colour

Junk mail about botany

Images of conflict

Conflicting messages

Light humour

Advertised appliances

The computer as an appliance

Brown 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.

Brown hair

Brown colours

Industrial 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.

Indications of industry

Industrial materials

Themes of industry

The death and rebirth of industry

Alternative industry

Industrial methods

Botany/ Conflict/ Light/ Knots 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.

Illustrations of botany

Images of conflict

Written messages of conflict

Conflicting ideas and ideals which crash up against on another

Contrast with light vs dark, black and white

Light satire

Knots of information

Knotted 3D forms (pictured above)

Brown 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.

Brown colour ways

Brown paint, paper and collage materials

Tones of brown

Brown/ Knots 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.

Brown paint

Brown colour

Knotted shapes

Light 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.

Light humour

Light content

Brown/ Appliances 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.

Brown colour

Tones of brown

Domestic settings and the appliances we use

How we are present in the appliances we use- traces of ourselves

Botany/ Conflict 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 of botany in ‘Mask’ series

Conflicting images

The merging of conflicting identities and locations

Brown 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.

Brown colour way

Earthy brown tones

Industrial 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.

Indications of industry

Forgotten industry

The industry of building and transport

An industrial object

Light 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.

Light vs dark

Contrast of black and white (lightest shade)

Light imagery addressing darker themes