Concentration (Sustained Investigation)
Rationale
A concentration is a body of related works that demonstrate a student’s sustained and thoughtful investigation of a special visual idea. It is NOT a selection of a variety of works produced as solutions to class projects or a collection of works with differing intents. Students should be encouraged to explore a personal, central interest as intensively as possible and are free to work with any idea in any medium that addresses three-dimensional design issues. The concentration should grow out of the student’s idea and demonstrate growth and discovery through a number of conceptually related works. In this section, the evaluators are interested not only in the work presented but also in visual evidence of the student’s thinking, selected method of working, and development of the work over time. Students are encouraged to include images that document their processes of thinking and creating.
A concentration is a body of related works that demonstrate a student’s sustained and thoughtful investigation of a special visual idea. It is NOT a selection of a variety of works produced as solutions to class projects or a collection of works with differing intents. Students should be encouraged to explore a personal, central interest as intensively as possible and are free to work with any idea in any medium that addresses three-dimensional design issues. The concentration should grow out of the student’s idea and demonstrate growth and discovery through a number of conceptually related works. In this section, the evaluators are interested not only in the work presented but also in visual evidence of the student’s thinking, selected method of working, and development of the work over time. Students are encouraged to include images that document their processes of thinking and creating.
What is the central idea of your concentration?
My concentration is about human emotion. I aim to capture very personal snapshots of subjects’ lives that clearly convey the intensity of their basic emotions (such as happiness and fear, for example) through their facial expression, body language, or activity. However, the concordant backgrounds of my pieces extend upon my subjects’ simple displays of how they feel, and serve to explore the nature, origin, and outcome of their emotions.
How does the work in your concentration demonstrate the exploration of your idea?
My subject range illustrates the diversity of humans who are nevertheless united in their expression of common emotions. Some of the backgrounds are concordantly stylized with the emotions of their characters: the more extreme and tortured the feelings being expressed, the more expressive and jagged the background. Others are edited, idyllic photographs that represent a stable environment. Still others appear to spin, reflecting the intensity of the expressed emotion. In piece 5, the green-eyed subject peering over his shoulder evokes the Shakespearian green-eyed monster of jealousy. Green streaks of background warp around his head like the horns of a monster. In piece 4, the subject looks proudly to the sky, but is crowned with a flimsy jester’s crown, rather than a real, gold one. His pride, visually represented by the burned-out orange smears radiating from his head, is ill-founded. The lines crawling over his skin form a teardrop below his eye. In piece 3, the dynamic and hectic spin of the urban backdrop represents the hype of a city’s expectations on their poster-boy professional athlete. The subject remains visibly calm and concentrated despite the pressure. In piece 6, the appealingly shy little girl hides in her peaceful environment, but her worried expression suggests the emotional turbulence of third-world struggles.
My concentration is about human emotion. I aim to capture very personal snapshots of subjects’ lives that clearly convey the intensity of their basic emotions (such as happiness and fear, for example) through their facial expression, body language, or activity. However, the concordant backgrounds of my pieces extend upon my subjects’ simple displays of how they feel, and serve to explore the nature, origin, and outcome of their emotions.
How does the work in your concentration demonstrate the exploration of your idea?
My subject range illustrates the diversity of humans who are nevertheless united in their expression of common emotions. Some of the backgrounds are concordantly stylized with the emotions of their characters: the more extreme and tortured the feelings being expressed, the more expressive and jagged the background. Others are edited, idyllic photographs that represent a stable environment. Still others appear to spin, reflecting the intensity of the expressed emotion. In piece 5, the green-eyed subject peering over his shoulder evokes the Shakespearian green-eyed monster of jealousy. Green streaks of background warp around his head like the horns of a monster. In piece 4, the subject looks proudly to the sky, but is crowned with a flimsy jester’s crown, rather than a real, gold one. His pride, visually represented by the burned-out orange smears radiating from his head, is ill-founded. The lines crawling over his skin form a teardrop below his eye. In piece 3, the dynamic and hectic spin of the urban backdrop represents the hype of a city’s expectations on their poster-boy professional athlete. The subject remains visibly calm and concentrated despite the pressure. In piece 6, the appealingly shy little girl hides in her peaceful environment, but her worried expression suggests the emotional turbulence of third-world struggles.
Score received: 5 ("Extremely Well Qualified")
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All explanations sourced from AP's AP Studio Art Course Description PDF:
media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-studio-arts-course-description.pdf |