AP Artist Spotlight: Eleanor Beck

During most of my life at ESD, I’ve always been taking some form of an art class. Being introduced to many different mediums throughout middle school, I was able to find my passion for art and knew it was a course I wanted to pursue throughout high school. Over the past four years, I’ve been able to approach art in many different ways, and after exploring a multitude of techniques, I have fallen in love with the aspect of being able to express myself in other creative forms.

ESD

Primarily through the use of colored pencils, I’ve approached each portfolio wanting to make images both realistic yet intricate with unconventional details. During junior year, my AP 2D Design concentration investigated my own personal fears. I demonstrated them by drawing self-portraits and using my emotions with the additional subtle images to symbolize each fear. Currently, my AP Drawing sustained investigation follows the evolution of the coronavirus. During the chaos of the past year, I wanted to investigate how myself and the world have adjusted to a new everyday lifestyle. Art has always been an outlet for me, and developing this portfolio has been another way for me to comprehend the stress and other emotions while going through the global pandemic.

While the majority of my art has evolved to include self-portraits and still lifes, I have always enjoyed the freedom that comes along with each piece created. I’m eager to continue my development as an artist and look forward to the opportunities of growth during college. Not only have I expanded on my abilities these past few years, but without the help of my classmates and teachers, my experience and memories made would not be the same.

Eleanor’s work is a self-recognition as part of a global reality but at the same time makes reference to the traumas and concerns that are such a big part of our individual and collective identity. Her well-executed self-portraits help the viewer identify themselves and establish a solid engagement with the work and its concept.

Juan Negroni, AP Studio Art Teacher

Leaves

This was a watercolor piece that I started in my sophomore year and finished right before junior year. It was a very tedious and delicate piece to create, because I had not worked with watercolor much before so I did not realize how difficult it was to create precise marks, while still allowing the paint to flow with the water. I like the composition created between the waterline background and the leaves.

Expressive Self-Portrait

This piece was an assignment given my junior year, where we had to model the work of another artist who uses layers of random scribbles to create colored portraits. I decided to create a very tiny intricate design for this image, not realizing how extremely time consuming it would be based on the size of the large piece of paper. However, I think it was worth it because I like how the image turned out, especially because of the contrasting colors and values created with layering the design I chose.

Creepy Crawlers

For my junior year concentration, I decided to portray all of my fears through a series of self-portraits. My biggest fear of all time is spiders, so that inspired my first piece of this concentration. I like this piece because I am able to look back and see my own growth in drawing portraits and using colored pencil evolve throughout the year.

Failure

This next piece represents the fear of failing. I was inspired by the stress of my junior year and trying to get good grades. I really love this piece because the portrait is in a gray tone, which is contrasted by the pop of red that I incorporated using Photoshop.

Needles

This image was inspired by a reccurring dream I had of needles poking my eye. I wanted to develop a more neutral piece by drawing on a white piece of paper which I don’t normally use, but I really enjoyed the outcome because I was able to develop a more bone-like skin texture to emphasize my expressionless face to something that is not very pleasant.

Coronavirus

This piece I drew at the start of the coronavirus when we went into quarantine. At the time I created this piece, there was a lot of unknown about the coronavirus, which is why I symbolized it through using a mask and multiple virus shapes. I like this piece because I was able to use colored pencil to incorporate a greater amount of detail into the eyes and facial features. This image inspired my concentration for my senior year where I decided to investigate the evolution of the coronavirus to me and the world.

Latex

For this piece, I started by drawing two hands to resemble both the people and medical workers reaching out to help during the pandemic. I like the simplistic composition of this piece, along with the contrast of the blue glove and gray toned hand, where I also was able to use incorporate white highlights.

Stretching Tensions

For this image I wanted to demonstrate tension between many different emotions I’ve had during the pandemic. I like the way I was able to mesh the two faces, along with the background where I used watercolor. I think it helped created definition between the two portraits and make them stand out more.

Stages

This piece is one of my favorites because I really enjoy the gray color values, and I also challenged myself with the composition and drawing three different self-portraits, all different ages. I did this because I wanted to demonstrate how the virus is affecting a wide range of people.

Armour

My final image brings awareness to the medical workers who have to wear many masks and face shields. It was challenging to draw through the reflection, but I like how this piece turned out because by leaving the background blank the image became more simplistic, which allows people to focus just on the portrait.

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