For my investigation into the theme of Observing and Transforming I created an embroided portrait of myself titled “Roché” The piece explores the many influences that make us, us. On the outside we may seem “basic”, however when we look on the inside, we are so much more complicated than we seem at first glance, which is what our IB course, TOK, teaches us about. Through investigating Caravaggio and Boris Schmitz I was able to make artistic choices to highlight the message of my piece and enhance the formal elements. Learning the different sewing stiches allowed me to create variety as well as the interesting pattern on the other side of the piece. When I first leant about embroidary art, I did not know that how you sew can create the patterns on the other side of your material as it never shown to the viewer. If I were to display this piece I would use two glass panels in a frame allowing the viewer to see the piece from both sides, challenging the norms of embroidary art and giving the new perspective on this artistic style. To make this piece I used a continuous line drawing of my face, inspired by Boris Schmitz work, and transferred it onto fabric by using a lightbox and tracing the lines onto the fabric. Once the line drawing was on the fabric I stitched the lines I had drawn. My artistic response to this unit was through fabric and thread. This pushed me outside of my comfort zone and allowed me to learn new skills as I had not had much experience with embroidary.

Modern exploration of Caravaggios Narcissus

This collage is titled Clinomania. Clinomania is the excessive desire to stay in bed. To express this I utilisied elements of two collage artists styles (Nicolas Ballesteros and Derek Gores). Although these artists have extremely different styles I used a subtle combination of both of them to bring my point across to the viewers. While aking this piece I tried to challenged myslef by learning new techniques as well as using simplicst elements. This is very different to the styles of other pieces I have made however I really enjoyed it and may use elements of this style in the future.