Art

For my main A Level Art project, I looked at power, and how it has been presented differently in art over time. The project is organised in three sections, each focused on a different aspect of power. My work was inspired and influenced by Julian Calder, Lucien Freud, Cecil Beaton and John Yuyi, a mix of artists and photographers.

For this section of the project, I focused on the Queen, thinking about the contrast between the power she holds legally, and the power she holds as a figure of influence. I recreated a photograph by Julian Calder in colour pencil, while also copying Freud's portrait in acrylic paint. Side by side, these images showed the vast difference in the power people perceive the Queen to have. My last piece of this section is an original study, inspired by the subtlety of Calder's image and the darkness of Freud's.

For the second section, I looked at Cecil Beaton's photography of Marilyn Monroe, questioning the power she held in the photographs against the sexual empowerment some believe she represents.

The first image is a pencil recreation of one of Beaton's photographs, where Marilyn lies suggestively, looking straight at the camera with a confident gaze. The second image, an original pencil drawing, contrasts the semiotics of the bold, monochrome image with total anonymity of the subject, looking at how a similar effect could be achieved to Beaton, without factoring in his subjects’ celebrity status. The power in the image remains ambiguous, as it depicts something intimate while being devoid of context. The viewer is therefore forced to consider who it might be, where they are, and the conditions in which the image was captured.

I also created two pencil portraits, designed to be seen side by side in order to highlight the ease with which what appears to be sexual dominance (and empowerment) can slide into vulnerability, as can be seen in the story of Marilyn Monroe's life and career. The first portrait shows the subject carefully made up, shoulders back with an air of confidence, while the second shows her crying, also starring at the viewer, but this time pleadingly.

For the final section of this project, I looked at the work of photographer John Yuyi, recreating her piece 'Tinder Match' in colour pencil to explore themes of power online. Inspired by her work, I printed temporary tattoos and applied them to my subject, creating two colour pencil portraits . The first of these was created to show the empowerment some people find online, using social media to curate an image of themselves they are proud to show to the public. The second piece juxtaposes the positivity of the first by looking at the vulnerability of those using social media. This can be interpreted in multiple ways, from the literal power they hold over their image once it is online and no longer in their control, the power the social media companies hold over the users of their sites, and also the power people have to genuinely choose and have free will over what they post, outside of influence from external factors.