AP Exam Practice-SI Draft (Ava Passehl)

 

• Identify the inquiry or questions that guided your sustained investigation (20 points)

  In my Sustained Investigation, I set out to question the nature of portraiture. Instead of merely showcasing one's physical attributes, I also wanted to portray my subject's personality in my portrait of them. I focused on male subjects, particularly my teenaged male friends, for three reasons. First, media portrayals of teenage boys can tend to be very stereotypical and rigid. I wanted to portray my friends as I see them and as they see themselves and present the best parts about each of their personalities to an audience who would come to know them through my pieces. Also, according to the NMWA, "a recent survey of the permanent collections of 18 prominent U.S. art museums found that the represented artists are 87% male and 85% white". I wanted to flip the roles and become the female artist representing male subjects. Finally, most of my past finished works focused on female subjects and I wanted to challenge myself to represent the male form better. 

  
  
• Describe how your sustained investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your inquiry or questions (20 points)

  My first inquiry detailed the same exploration into portraying personality, but it included all of my loved ones, from my mother to my best friend to my teammates. However, trying to pick and choose who I portrayed became too difficult, and it was hard to maintain a consistent style across all subjects. Therefore, I narrowed down my subjects to only my teenage male friends. To truly guide my inquiry, I decided to include the input of my subjects into my projects. Before and during the creation of each piece, I asked my subjects a number of questions about themselves, their likes/dislikes, their pasts, their families, their passions, etc. I also had each subject send me some of their favorite images, such as pictures of their family or their favorite album covers, to add to the pieces. Each piece also includes an element of found object collage, demonstrating the complex patchwork of each personality, assembled from many sources of inspiration, likes/dislikes, life events, etc. For my second and sixth sustained investigation (Rob and Eddie), I experimented with the idea of background using projection. Originally, I wanted to create a large mural for my second sustained investigation; however, I wanted to create an equally effective piece while maintaining the component of collage, so I settled on a projection background.