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AP Studio Art Gallery

Student: Andy Tai

Score: 5

Andy has gone on to a degree at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, USA.  His AP Studio Art Concentration focused on self portraits with perspective.

Andy Tai's Statement

After seeing all of the perfect photos nowadays teenagers, like me, post on Facebook, I realize that everyone has become very self-conscious. We are always worried about how we look in front of our friends and often try to choose the best possible photo of ourselves after taking many poses. I decided to just be myself and base my concentration on answering the question, “Do I really look that way?”.  These self-portraits are focused on telling a story and exploring how I really look when I am unguarded and acting normal.

 

 I started my portraits by wanting to know what I look like doing my hobbies. I played with perspective, such as using bird’s eye view while swimming (#1) and while playing basketball (#6).  Then, I tried worm’s eye view while filming (#9).  I decided that I had to put more of my personality and emotions into my work to really explore how I look. For example, #4 shows frustration when I picked up a pencil, #5 shows apprehension and in #12 I tried to show my playful side by peeking out the window during break time. Then, I decided to lower my self-consciousness more and did portraits of my daily routine that I would normally never let anyone see and brushed my teeth (#7), ate with my mouth open (#10) and exposed my classroom habits (#11). Each of these tells a normal story, but they are not pictures you would ever find on Facebook. As I progressed through my Concentration, my artistic skills and expression improved. The first few artworks were low contrast, but as I progressed, I started adding really dark areas as seen in #10.  Overall, I think I improved my skills and what I wanted to express. I may not find my portraits appeasing because of the expressions on my face, but at least now I know how I look.

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