As the first term of Grade 11 comes to an end, there are a few takeaways I have from each of my classes, especially from one particular class. The Philippine Arts (PhilArts) course has taught me many things, one of them being contemporary art. Based on my learnings, contemporary art is a movement. A movement to break the expected standards and bring to the world what was thought impossible. Contemporary art is unconventional and the best thing about it? It can be seen everywhere and it can be done by anyone, including me. Our PhilArts class wasn’t just about learning contemporary art, it was also about applying it to ourselves. Honestly, I’m not a gifted artist but I like to believe I made a good job in creating the artworks.
1) Welcome, Sam
This is the very first artwork I’ve created in class. It’s entitled, ‘Welcome, Sam’ as it pertains to me—Shanes Aleya Mendoza—being welcomed to the contemporary art world. This self-portrait is a form of digital art as I used a software—specifically Paint.net—to create it. Beside it being a digital art, it’s also considered as a minimalist art because I did not incorporate too many details in it.
2) Heaven’s Box
Have you heard of the story of Pandora’s box? Just in case you haven’t, let me tell you the summary. Basically, Zeus created a human girl named Pandora as a punishment for the humans on earth. She was almost perfect if it wasn’t for the fact that Zeus has vested upon her a gift (well, more like a curse), curiosity. Zeus gave her a box (originally, it was a jar) and told her to never open it. But what do you expect to happen when you give a curious girl a box filled with mysteries? Pandora opened the box and alas! All the evilness such as greed and poverty has been brought out to the world. Now, isn’t that sad?
Inspired by this story, I created my own version of Pandora’s box and called it ‘Heaven’s Box’. Instead of it bringing all things evil to the world, it brings all things good such as justice, passion and harmony. The materials I used in making this includes an illustration board, thread, cardboard and other things that can easily be seen around the house. I used different kinds of techniques such as gluing the box together and stitching flames into the overflowing white cloth (which cannot be that seen in the picture, unfortunately). The subject of this artwork is the box and the main message? I want to give to the world a place where there is no destruction, only peace and freedom.
3) The World I Want to Live in
This is my (sad) attempt of using the frottage technique. Frottage is when you use an object such as a coin or a leaf and place it over a piece of paper then start shading. It’s basically printing the outline of the object on a paper by shading it using a pencil or a crayon. The objects I used to make this frottage artwork are leaves, coins and bits of cardstock paper. The background is done using the watercolor painting technique, the blue and green paint symbolising the earth.
There are reasons why the leaves are colored the way they are. The pink leaf symbolizes unconditional love, the red leaf symbolizes passion, the blue leaf symbolizes tranquility, the yellow leaf symbolizes happiness and finally, the grey leaf symbolizes chivalry. The message of this artwork is that I want to live in a world where these values exist. The stone-wall created using coins are halfway destroyed symbolizing that I want to live in a world where people are not afraid to be themselves. At the same time, people will not judge one another for opening up. Oh, how great would it be if such a world existed. I call this artwork, ‘The World I Want to Live in’.
4) Taylor Shellie
I call her Taylor Shellie. Her name is Taylor because she looks like a Taylor, and Shellie because of the shells in her dress. I made this artwork as an attempt to do local art.
Local art is when you make art using local materials, obviously. In this case, I used shells because it resembles imperfections, something everyone human being has. In my head, Taylor is a dancer and despite her imperfections, she lives life by dancing through it. The theme of my artwork is ‘A Part of my World in a New World’ and the message I want to convey is that I want to bring my imperfections with me. Why? Because perfect is boring and imperfections are what challenges us everyday. Even in a new world, I will not strive to be perfect, I will only strive to be better. While making Taylor Shellie, I spent so many hours using a glue gun to paste the shells in her dress, burning some of my skin in the process. As I look back at the final output, I like to thing that my efforts did not go into waste.
With my experience in making these artworks plus the course drawing into a close, I have a few takeaways. First, when it comes to art, never be restricted. Contemporary art is all about creativity and expressing yourself in the most vivid way possible. Second, we are all artists. I used to think that since I’m not skilled in making art, I can never be considered an artist. Through this course, I learn that everyone has the capability of becoming an artist in their own little ways. Finally, I learned that every masterpiece has a meaning behind it whether it was made intentionally or unintentionally for the art we create resembles a part of us and there will always be a reason why your artwork was created that way and why it wasn’t. Art is all about expression, not impression. Overall, PhilArts was a fun course and I’m surely going to miss attending it.
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