
ERLEBNISSE
A Journeyed Experience into Making Meaning Through Art.
This online exhibition of DP visual arts student work is being called “Erlebnisse” which is a German word for experiences which are both good and bad but in this is the idea of life’s adventures. The students, during this two-year course, have journeyed through an adventure of sorts that required that they dig deep to uncover creative depths that would in the end inform their collection of artworks.
Students featured in this online exhibition have identified, through their collection of art pieces, things that are common to all of us as a part of the human experience. Through this, students uncovered aspects of these common experiences that perhaps at first are not fully comprehended. The common experiences they explored developed into conceptual ideas such as the exploration into perspective whether physical or metaphysical, motion and how we experience it, light and its effects upon our visual experience and psyche, addiction and good or bad in its various forms which humans can process through, and technology’s ability to consume our natural world.
These concepts show parts of life that are common experiences for us all at different points in our lives. And as a teacher, it was such an honor to be able to guide students as they dug into the goldmine of these concepts. To also guide them in uncovering their creative strengths in how to best communicate the ideas for artworks they developed within their concepts. In addition, it was wonderful to see these students develop a critical eye that is needed to be able to effectively communicate all aspects of the visual arts experience.
Students learned to develop their ability to critically analyze artists’ works that carried a common thread to their developing concepts, they learned that demonstrating their process is foundational to arriving to a fully realized artwork, a completed artwork. Students learned to not take their processes for granted in all of this. Students also had the privilege to work alongside a well-known working artist named Kool Koor during his visiting artist time at our school recently. All these experiences led them to arrive at their fully realized or completed body of artworks.
As one student shared with me, when they reflect upon where they started two years ago in this process, this experience of DP visual arts, the depth in which they uncovered about their initial concept, how this helped them to develop even stronger works of art that clearly communicated such depth, really surprised them. The beauty in this is when you are a mentor, a teacher, you see these potential depths in each student based on their own personal strengths and so to guide them to this place where they can see this for themselves, that is why this process is so important.
It wasn’t easy for the students at many stages; it required lots of tenacity and resilience coupled with the given pandemic our world has been faced with during this time, yet these students still rose to the occasion, fought well to complete their processes and now we can present to you, our viewers, “Erlebnisse: A Journeyed Experience into Making Meaning Through Art”.
Please enjoy the experience as you view each component of the students’ art portfolios.
Congratulations WISS DP visual arts students of 2020 for a job well-done!
We Are One, We Are WISS!!
Warmest Regards,
Ms. Vanek
Allen’s Work
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Jena’s Work
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Ross’s Work
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Shyla’s Work
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Tony’s Work