Arts and Explorations

Project Type: Individual
Activities: Exploring lines, shapes, textures and colours to create art pieces that communicated thoughts and ideas
Tools: Pencils, Smudge Pens, Paints, Sculpting Tools, Carpentry Tools, Clay

  • Throughout my life, starting from school, I have been exposed to different forms of visual art. Initially viewing the visual arts as a skill, I later learned it to be a means of expression. I started to draw parallels between art, literature and other disciplines and how each of them differed in their own way of expression.

  • I tried my hand at different forms of visual arts such as painting, drawing, sculpting using stone, carving using wood, pottery and craft. Of the lot, I enjoyed painting and pottery the most.

  • Painting gives me the satisfaction of expression by the use of colour. I feel challenged with how to convey a concept through the use of colours, shades, texture and pencil drawing.

  • Pottery gives me the satisfaction of testing the boundaries of moulding a product of the earth into something more defined. The process of digging up clay, converting it into a mouldable form and then moulding it into an object such as a pot or a shoe is immensely satisfying to me.

  • Exploring design work in accordance with other disciplines such as communication and media, brought about excitement, experimentation and strategy. The process of purpose oriented design was enjoyable and allowed me to think without boundaries and explore the use of different tools.

Below are some of my explorations with different forms of visual arts and experimentation with design.

Contrast: This piece seeks to represent the difference between two elements, water and fire, from the five elements of nature. While water is cool and soothing to look at, fire is raging and hurtful to look at. The piece also explores colour seeking to showcase how the colour of water changes at deeper levels and how the colour of fire changes as it continues to burn from its core. This piece was made with the use of watercolours.

Realm: This piece represents the three common realms of the universe as seen by the common man; Heaven, the Earth, and Hell. As most people view it, Heaven is seen as a place of bliss and hence has been placed on top. The Earth is considered to be the separation between Heaven and Hell and hence, it has been placed in the middle. Hell, a place of suffering, has been placed at the bottom. The work was done using pencils and smudging tools.

Imperfection: When I was initially sculpting this piece, I never intended for it to turn out the way it did. What I had envisioned was a man’s head, perfectly shaped with features that almost seemed real. It turned out that a piece of stone was accidentally chipped off by me while using the chisel. My teacher at that point, motivated me to turn the mistake that I had made into something that had meaning. I feel that this sculpture is a perfect representation of "imperfection." No one can be perfect. Whatever one has achieved, he/she will still have something absent in him/her. This work was done using a single piece of stone

Wheel Pot: This piece is a wheeled pot made with clay, while I was experimenting with different methods of making a clay pot such as a wheeled pot or coil pot. The wheel pot produces a much better finish and is much faster to make than a coil pot.

Wood: Rendering texture and lighting with lines and shades has been something that I have come to appreciate. Alternating between simplicity and complexity in using lines and shades, can provide an entirely different dimension of meaning to art. This was my attempt at providing texture and lighting to a cut block of wood.