It’s a bloody hot day, probably about 38 degrees Celsius or more. The hot summer breeze flowing in and out of this room and I’ve got my ten inch fan blowing straight at my shirtless body.

Ok, besides the intensity of the heat that’s driving me nuts, I’ve experienced one of the most fascinating examinations one could ever experience. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had to give out a 30-60 minute presentation on my art pieces, singling them out individually, and also my whole art collection as a whole. I will try to reconstitute what I experienced at my exhibition today.

The examiner, who shall remain nameless throughout this process, first began asking me on how I initialized my Visual Arts journey. So, I showed her this.

This is my first piece of art work that I successfully completed within the IB course. It’s called ‘Life & Death’. I basically first got the idea of doing this piece after  reading literature books in English, namely ‘The Outsider’, ‘Siddhartha’ and ‘The House of the Spirits’. Within those books, many literary components such as binary opposites can be found throughout, which distinctly set up a mental image of what I wanted to do in Art, hence this art piece.

I continued my journey onto experimenting with different visual concepts. Having a slight interest in perspective design (eg. Architecture),  I depicted an artist named Feng Zhu in my artwork. (For those who do not know him, he drew many robots and backdrops used in the all-thrilling movie Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith)

From then on, I decided to move out of the conventional and into something more abstract. Whilst doodling, I came up with this art design. I named it Spira, as for its shape portrayed and colours used. Excited by what I achieved, I moved further into the abstract.

Experiencing the joy of water colour was incredible. The freedom you had to mix colours was such a trigger that made me continue experiments in the following media. Silhouettes as a major theme in sunsets are common in photographs, which gave me a bright idea to use it in an attempt to paint a sunset – thus this.  

“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.” Based on the biblical theory of creating Earth in seven days, I came up with this idea. Have one big canvas, and paint what you feel like painting over seven days. Easy!

Then came my major piece ‘The Tree’. Instead of blowing up a pointless photograph into a major piece, I decided to be brave and try something that would’ve seemed impossible if I never did try. Experimenting with fine colour mixtures, fine detail, light & dark, colour blending and brush strokes, I managed to pull out my visualisation of a simple photographic tree into a masterpiece of beauty and serenity. Taking almost 8 weeks to complete, every single bit of effort put into this was worth every single second.

My next step: Photography. Realising that my art might insufficiently lack quantity by this time of the year, photography was a key aspect of art I must’ve integrated. I had my camera, and I wasn’t afraid to use it.

Curiosity hit me, and I was once again experimenting with different styles of art. Ink was the next step. Abstract ink. Blotches of ink spread over smooth white paper, covered with plastic foil and left to dry over night. Good concept, good result. Not knowing what to expect, it left me with a sense of awe as I entered the art studio to witness one of man’s greatest discovery.

Having a few more weeks left to go before submitting in these pieces, I conjured up a nostalgic memory that left me full of joy and delight. Do you remember those sand arts you used to do when you were kids, peeling of traces of sticker and filling in the space with colourful sand? Happy thoughts ran through my mind as I recalled my childhood memories. “…but what theme?” I thought. Sand, beach, kids, tattoos, soccer… everything ran through my mind as I sought out ideas for what I wanted to do. My last piece of work was going to be so much fun!

There you go, my exhibition up for you to read through, recalling what I said and what I wish I had said at my examination today. I don’t care what result I get for my Visual Art subject, I’m just really glad I did art in the first place.

Creativity is not something you can learn in a day or two, it’s something you have to experience first hand and develop.

And in attempt, you can experience lots of different changes…