AQA GCSE Art and Design Themes 2019 Resource Pack - Saatchi Gallery
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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 Working through information
Messages as truth or lies Personal space
My surroundings as the user and my vulnerability Spaces in real life and on the Web
Working methods of the artist 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 industryMessages/ 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 compactTexture/ 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 workMessages/ 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 workMessages 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 messagesTexture/ 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 objectsMy 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 Working methods
The artists and their surroundings Busy, energetic and active spaces
Working environmentMy 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 texturesMy 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 spacesMy 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 messagesMy 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 livesNatural 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 imageTexture/ 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 usedMy 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
workMassages/ 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 spaceMy 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 livesNatural 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 Illustrations of the elements
Implied messages Working methods, including working with others
Political or historical messages The space between light and darkTexture/ 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 workYou can also read
