Year 9 Art Semester 2 Reflection

This Semester, Year 9 kicked off with a focus on the art style Cubism and Picasso. We learnt about his famous mural “Guernica” and about the history of the work when during the Spanish Civil war, the town of Guernica was bombed.

Guernica displays several human figures, displaying emotions of stress, agony and pain. Not only can you see the pain and trauma of the war but we also came across the feeling of chaos that is embedded into the mural. We then created our own Guernica Appropriation painting. It was essential we had to include the style of Cubism into the painting so it was comparable to the original Guernica.

We reflected on our own time in isolation during COVID and used symbols in our work to represent this experience. There were paintings that contained symbols of masks, toilet paper and medical supplies. We used a monochrome palette in acrylic paint with touches of granite pencil drawn over the top.

Next we delved into the work of American artist, Keith Haring. We decided to paint a mural about Equality in the art room. We jotted down ideas of our own, each with a topic that comes under the meaning of equality. Some of the ideas included, the most recent protests surrounding Black Lives Matter, gender equality, poverty, race, religion and cultures. We painted the wall in a Keith Haring style, with lots of pattern. The process took a while but all the hard work and drafting was so worth it!

I am happy with my choice of choosing Year 9 Art as my elective and grateful for Ms Wood for being our creative leader in Year 9 Art!

by Laura McMahon