(Image: Self portrait by Abbie Rentoule)
The image above is one of my favorite pieces or art, a self-portrait by my wonderful younger daughter who is doing the IB Diploma Program. Students were tasked with creating a self-portrait that represented their individual identities, incorporating elements from their various cultural backgrounds.
My daughter explained to me that the idea of the golden cracks was taken from a form of pottery in Japan where broken fragments are reconstructed, not hiding the flaws, but accentuating them using gold leaf with the idea that true beauty is realized not through an ideal perfection, but through the uniqueness of imperfection. What a magnificent idea.
In my own experiences of art at school we drew and painted, but in a process devoid of any sort of deeper conceptualization. When I was in art class at school, I just drew bad pictures. You have to love a conceptually driven curriculum for this. It is the Japanese sakura and the Australian wattle that are represented in the background, in case you were wondering. I love it when our children amaze us.
(29 December, 2015)