IB VISUAL ARTS 2023

olivia chilcott

All artworks in this exhibition explore the notion of “love and loss”, for whilst love is apparent in all our lives - either through our personal relationships, experiences or passions, loss is almost always inevitable. I aim to evoke a simultaneous feeling of warmth and heartache in the audience, with some artworks perhaps being reminiscent of their personal experiences with love and loss. Since I was young, I’ve always felt the most moved by artworks depicting love, or the subsequent loss of it. Thus, felt compelled to illustrate my own experiences on this subject in hopes to induce the same feelings in the viewer. Whilst this exhibition explores both sides of love and loss, I hope to emphasise the bittersweet message that you cannot feel the grief and devastation of loss without feeling the incredible and warm feeling of love; loving is worth the risk of losing.

Within this theme, motifs of dance and city skylines are intertwined throughout the exhibition. My love and subsequent loss of passion for dance is depicted in the first and last artwork of the exhibition. However, it is also touched on in “Star-crossed lovers” expressing love through dance, and “Nonna” as this scene (her cooking Gnocchi in her kitchen) is often what I’d see every Friday after dance when I came to visit her. The city skylines in both “Where it all started” and “Star-crossed lovers” are used to symbolise the immense amount of people we are constantly surrounded by and have the opportunity to love, but also a reminder of how special it is that we find specific people to love despite there being billions. There is a lot of pink, purple and blue tones across the artworks, as well as a similar style of how the people are painted to create cohesiveness across the exhibition. It allows the story of love to loss to flow from left to right. I placed the photography in the centre as it encompasses the journey from love to loss, which is also occurring horizontally across the exhibition. Either side of “I saw sparks” is either more love or loss based, with the left side being more reminiscent of love from a naïve, innocent, and child-like perspective, and the right more indicative of loss and more complicated relationships experienced when we are older. However, most artworks touch on both aspects of love and loss in some form.

  

I used to float…

Acrylic on canvas

30.5 x 30.5 cm

This is of a young girl beginning ballet, dancing around on her tippy toes in a big flowy dress. It is representative of my incredible love and passion for dance – the thing I have always loved most in life. This is the most personal artwork of the exhibition as the meaning is greatly inspired by my experience. I begged Mum to put me in dance classes and I immediately fell in love with it, my whole life revolved around it for 15 years and formed a great part of my identity.

Where it all started

Oil on canvas

40 x 52 cm

This is Coolangatta beach, it’s not only the place where my parents met, but also the beach they got married on. Given their love is one of the first I was exposed to, I found it significant to include in the exhibition as it has ultimately shaped my perception and understanding of love. This beach is full of memories of love, either through the stories of my parents, or my own experiences on holidays spending quality time with loved ones.

Star-crossed lovers

Acrylic & Oil on canvas

62 x 45 cm

Playing on the idea of fated romantic love “written in the stars” by destiny, two lovers dance in the sky - interlinking with the underlying motif of love expressed through dance. They’re above an upside-down cityscape – alluding this to be an alternate Universe where their love would have worked out. There is a dreamy element suggesting this relationship will now remain a dream which contributes to the loss of “what could have been” if it worked out in this life.

I saw sparks

Colour Photographs on foam core board

4 x 28.5 x 29 cm prints

Representing the stages of a relationship it encompasses both the love and loss of it. The fire symbolises passion and intense emotions, in this case romantic love, and the matches act as the two individuals caught in it. The first photograph illustrates the start of a connection, the next signifies the overwhelming love and passion within the connection. The third displays the burning out of the connection, followed by the ultimate loss of the connection with only memories (smoke) remaining.

Stay

Clay and pins

17.5 x 15 x 8 cm

This artwork symbolises two individuals who although they love each other and want to remain in each others lives, keep hurting each other by doing so. It’s not necessarily representing toxicity in a relationship or friendship – rather can be interpreted as a lack of compatibility and that the two individuals just don’t work together despite wanting to. It also represents staying in a harmful connection out of fear of losing that person and the challenges that accompany loss.

Nonna

Acrylic on canvas

30.5 x 41 cm

Here’s my Nonna wearing her favourite pink jumper I bought her, cooking Gnocchi Napoli - the dish she made me when I went to her house every Friday after dance. Her love language is cooking for or with family, as well as the tradition of making sauce together - represented by two Napoli sauce bottles. It depicts grandparental love, but also slowly losing them - as my Nonna is very unwell now. My family associates my dead Nanna with a white butterfly, which is painted on the basil plants.

Now I just fall down

Acrylic on canvas

30.5 x 30.5 cm

Illustrating a teenage ballerina who appears dull, lost and worn out - it is the contrast of “I used to float”. It is representative of my eventual loss of love for dance due to the negative relationship I formed with it. Never being “thin enough” or “good enough” slowly chipped away at the love I once had for dance, and whilst leaving it was necessary, a huge part of my identity left with it. This is a very different form of heartbreak, yet one of the most devastating losses I have experienced.

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Sebastian Berryman