End of Course Exhibition - IMAGE LAB: SAMPLING-AADTHU

End of Course Exhibition - IMAGE LAB: SAMPLING

2020.11.20

Sketching (30803943-0) · End of Course Exhibition

Time: April 13, 2020-May 8, 2020

Participating students: Yin Zixi, He Haichuan, Li Jixuan, Zeng Qingyan,

Zhang Yijia, Wan Wenjuan, Yan Yu, Li Siyi, Li Dandan, Liang Xiaowei, and Cai Huiyu

Instructor: Mo Zhi

This exhibition is the final student work exhibition of the sketching course. Sketching is a key course for the second-year students majoring in oil painting.

In the traditional college curriculum for art students, faces, hands, feet, and texture are common themes. Sketching is a time-consuming activity which requires the painter to observe the object he/she is sketching attentively, record what is being viewed, and understand how visual language becomes a channel for individual expression.

The entire course was taught online. On students' side, this online course required higher self-control and independent learning abilities and longer attention spans. Sketching exercises were based entirely on students' impression of the space they were in.

In an ever-changing world, students often wonder how sketching exercises is good for artistic creation. What is the relationship between creative artistic expression and boring training?

The theme of this exhibition is 'sampling'. Participants are encouraged to think about the process, content and significance of painting. The exhibition is divided into three sections:

1. Hands as an artistic symbol and hands as the object of sketching. To reproduce/record their impression of hands. First, hands are the second face of an artist. Secondly, to become artists, all art students need to be trained to use their hands deftly.

2. Self-portrait. Portraits show social masks that people wear, while an artist's self-portrait is the artist's impression of his/her own social mask.

3. Texture, feelings, and reconstruction after destruction. The sketching of fabrics and fabric texture is not only a technical, precise reproduction of the object. What is more important is that through observation we realize that these very different states, whether soft or hard, withering or elastic, are not just about the texture of the object being viewed but also an expression of our emotions and feelings.

The reason we curated the exhibition on the theme 'sampling' is because we want to highlight every individual in action and get a glimpse of their real life. In the days of isolation, we had more opportunities to think about ourselves, our lives, how to treat ourselves, and how to see painting. Sampling is about a rational and empirical attitude to the unknown. We should not search for evidence in support of prejudice, but should organize and present every material in a prudent manner. This is what we should do whether it is a basic course or artistic creation.