- Identify an issue, political or non-political event (e.g. violence or gangsterism) or situation in one's own country or anywhere in the world.
- In order to uncover feelings, reactions and thoughts about the identified issue, brainstorm ideas about the event using words, phrases, lines, shapes, colours, movement, music, etc. to explore personal reactions more deeply.
- To explore possible styles for expressing your reaction, use artists' works studied as stimulants or consider incorporating or adapting the styles, but do not simply copy them. For example, you can gather 3-Dimensional items from the surroundings that symbolise your iconography, or collage them into an interesting sculptural form. In this way you could be combining the styles of Willie Bester and Jane Alexander in your own personal way as well as representing your own personal views.
Desired Outcomes: To enable students to combine research using the Internet with personal feelings to develop an individual artistic iconography (personal message) in a series of artworks.
Time: 2-3 hours (several computer sessions)
Number of students: Dependent on the amount of computers available.
Method:
Step 1: Background information
In pairs each student should briefly look at works by each of the four artists presented on this site.
Step 2:
Each member of the pair should choose a different artist, and together, the two students must explore and compare the different styles of the two artists, and the reasons for the specific styles.
Step 3:
In addition to these two artist, the pair should go onto the Internet and follow some of the suggested links to art sites where new, contemporary artworks are being displayed.
Step 4:
The pair should try and assess why a particular artist is creating a specific work, and should try and find as much symbolism in the works as possible. The students will now have information on the different styles and symbolism found in artists responding to a particular event of situation. This is the artist's iconography.
Step 5: Creating an original Iconography
Using this background information, in the same pairs the students should now try and develop a joint iconography between them and/or an iconography for each individual. The pair or the individual should do the following:
Extension:
Each individual should now create an artwork based on their iconography. The work does not have to be big, and can simply consist of a stick-and-paste collage using interesting magazine images. The iconography of the student must be represented through symbolism. Each work should be displayed and if possible presented to the class or to a portion of it, where the symbolism is explained. The students can create a series of works, each dealing with a different part of their own iconography. Each can be in a different medium, and size variation can also form part of the iconography.