figuring out what my inquiry should be for AP 2D art has been so difficult. choosing for AP 3D was a lot easier i think because i have a more distinct style in ceramics and glasswork. my inquiry was about how time and nature affect and decay human made art (my largest piece was a sculpture of Christ the Redeemer headless and falling apart) With 2D pieces i feel like im starting with much more of a blank canvas (no pun intended) I do mostly portraits and use mostly oil paints, so my inquiry should be about human nature or faces in a way but that feels so broad. Right now i'm leaning towards an exploration of my friendship with my best friend, who i could paint. but that feels to broad and im not sure how far i could stretch that. I could also explore friendship in general or my lack thereof but how do you paint friends you don't have. An unrelated idea was to explore how i could represent both the portrait of a person along side their 'soul'. so each of the 15 pieces would be two small oil paintings, a portrait and an abstract more intuitive painting of the same size representing their character and 'soul' in a sense. I like that idea a lot but again i don't think i could do that 15 times well enough and not be repetitive. using different mediums might make it more interesting, exploring how different they might be because of the medium, but again im not sure how far i could stretch that. Maybe a portrait and connecting 'soul' piece in oil paints, lino cut, charcoal, oil pastels, collage, ect but same issue as before, how far can i really push that one concept.
I wish more people talked bout how they brainstormed their ideas in the first place so i'm just trying to put my thoughts out there. from my perception most people do their portfolio around something that happened to or impacts them, like anxiety or depression, screen addictions, covid, being a minority, etc. i don't think those are necessarily bad, i just want to have a more artistic concept in general, something that isn't explored as often. I'm trying to stay away from things like climate change and specific political commentary too, not that it's unnecessary but as an AP portfolio i think it's a bit tired. I'm not necessarily looking for advice, i'm typically yelling into the void on tumblr anyway, but i would appreciate to understand other peoples thought process and how they decided to explore what they did.
