This document provides information and guidance for an A2 art exam on the theme of "Truth, Fantasy or Fiction". It outlines the structure of the exam including a 10 week preparatory study period and 12 hour timed exam. It provides tips for each of the four assessment objectives and suggests sub-categories to help with research and brainstorming ideas. Examples of artists are also given to illustrate different interpretations of the theme through their work.

1. A2 Art Exam Theme
TRUTH, FANTASY OR FICTION
12 hour exam

2. EDEXCEL Externally Set
Assignment
A2
10 weeks Preparatory Study
Period
12 hours Timed Exam
+ 1 Week of Half Term and 2
Weeks at Easter

3. Some of you lost easy marks as you did not make the most of the start
of your previous project:
- not thinking independently about your ideas
- not fully exploring your mind map
- not fully exploring your initial artists
- not completing a full contact sheet for each idea
It is imperative that you pick a subtheme or subject matter you are
happy to explore in more than one way. Then choose the direction you
are most keen on and have a variety of ideas for.
Stay up-to-date with all set tasks and make sure you come to each
lesson prepared with necessary materials and images (NO MORE
SCREEN SHOTS!)
You bring the ideas! – the exam unit is far more personal, fast paced,
and ambitious than your coursework unit! Be brave!
Learning from before?

4. You are still responding to the 4 Assessment
Objectives
• AO1 - Develop your ideas through investigations informed by
contextual and other sources demonstrating analytical and
cultural understanding
• AO2 - Refine your ideas through experimenting and selecting
appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and
processes.
• AO3 - Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to your
intentions in visual and/or other forms.
• AO4 - Present a personal, informed and meaningful response
demonstrating analytical and critical understanding, realising
intentions and where appropriate, making connections between
visual, written, oral or other elements.
40% of final A2 mark

5. AO1: Developing ideas
•Research should never stop.
•Always look for new and/or more detail
•Make sure you use all resources given
AO2: Experiment and Refine
•Confidently use media that is appropriate to the theme/artist
•Do it over and over to prove a developing skill in more than just
one media. One task a week is not enough!
•The more you produce, the better informed you will be in terms
of skill, and the more developed your work will be.
What top tips can you think of
for each objective?

6. AO3: Recording and technical skills
•Make every contact sheet and enlargement count – think about
your formal elements, composition, exposure, camera settings
•Every mistake can drag your marks down so make these your
strongest photos yet!
•Presentation can help hide flaws and weaknesses –
enlargements should be your best images, fill blank spaces on
your weebly, etc.
AO4: Personal response
•Try not to repeat similar ideas to what you have already created.
•Be ambitious!
•Leave yourself enough time and get organised at least 2 weeks before
the exam date.
What top tips can you think of
for each objective?

7. TRUTH, FANTASY OR
FICTION
Some sub-categories to help you with your research and
brainstorm:
life, death, interrogation, torture, war, intolerance
• discovery, dissection, archaeology, astronomy, astrology
• magnifying glasses, microscopes, binoculars, computers
• mirrors, reflective surfaces, lights
• love, trust, marriage, divorce, conciliations
• synagogues, churches, mosques, cathedrals
• conspiracy, slavery, politics, corruption, money, power
• detectives, police, law, justice
• science, maths, theories, measuring instruments,
calculators, books
• folk tales, myths, sagas, poems, tapestries

8. Truth

9. Richard Avedon Complex
truths
beneath
the
beautiful
facade

10. Jill Greenberg – real emotions

13. Martin Parr
Obsessive pursuit of a
“truthful”
representation of
British culture

14. Jenny Saville

15. Xu Zhen – “In just a blink of an
eye”
• Migrants in Manhattan’s China Town trapped in a suspension
between two different societies

16. Lorenzo Vitturi – “Dalston Anatomy”

17. Sam Taylor-Wood
Born March 4, 1967

18. Ansel Adams
Majesty of nature
Part of “Group f/64” which was
about relishing in the truth of
photography

19. Irving Penn
Extraordinary in the mundane – changing
our expectations and perceptions, Irving
Penn’s still life images of cigarette butts
and other discarded items, elevating
objects from mundane to worthy of
admiration.

20. Fantasy – “Human kind can only bear
so much reality” TS Elliot
Perhaps we all eventually retreat towards a fantasy
world, especially during times of stress.

21. Rene Magritte – “This is not a
pipe”
Art is not truth. It is a lie that makes us realise truth. It is
not reality but instead art models and examines what is

22. Paula Rego - psychological dramas

25. Filip Dujarden –
Impossible Architecture

26. Anna Schuleit

27. Chrisse Macdonald

28. Jerry Ulesmann – surrealism and
alternate realities

29. Erwin Blumenfeld – plays with perception and
toys with our expectations

30. Duane Michals

31. Childhood
Phobias
“The
Boogeyman”

32. Jan Von Holleben – “dream of flying”
What did you dream of being as a child? Has it
changed?

33. Stephen Gill
Blemises and mistakes,
degenerating visual
effects rather than
photoshopping or
airbrushing. There’s a
truth to this process.

34. Jack Deane

35. Beth Thompson

36. Yin Yang

37. Sam Taylor Wood

38. Unknown

39. Yowa Yowa

40. Riccardo Bevilacqua

41. Chris Scarborough

42. fiction

43. James
Casbere
Fictional landscapes that are
built and lit in a studio

46. Thomas Demand

47. Aaron Siskind
Ironic charm in cracked
surfaces – inspired by
Abstract Expressionism

48. Roman/ Greek sculptors
Depicting only
perfections,
ignoring flaws

49. Body Works Exhibition

50. Jeff Wall
These photos are fake – they are actors that are
being staged to represent our everyday lives and key
moments that relate to our interactions. They
pander to photography’s misleading “reality”

51. Rita Berstein Distressed weathered
surfaces symbolise
human relationships

52. Cornelia Parker Twenty Years of Tarnish
(wedding Presents) –
pun to connote failing
relationships

53. Gillian Wearing

54. Aban Grosdidier David Ryle Hector Sos

55. John Pfahl
While making my "picture window"
photographs, I came to think that every
room was like a gigantic camera forever
pointed at the same view. In the dictionary,
of course, the word camera in Latin means
chamber or room. I searched the country for
these cameras and their views: the more
unusual or picturesque, the better. It was
often hard to tell from the outside what
could be seen from the inside, so I was
usually surprised when I discovered a scene
in its new context. Strangers with puzzled
looks were amazingly cooperative in letting
me into their rooms with my photographic
gear. They let me take down the curtains,
wash the windows, and rearrange the
furniture. Often, too, they expressed their
desire to share their view with others, as if it
were a nondepletable treasure.I liked the
idea that my photographic vantage points
were not solely determined by myself. They
were predetermined by others, sometimes
years earlier, and patiently waited for me to
discover them.

56. William Henry Fox
Talbot –
Latticed window at
Lacock Abbey,
August 1835
The oldest
photographic
image ever found

57. A recurrent theme in the work of American artist Edward
Hopper is the representation of both the inside and
outside world in his paintings, perhaps alluding to
something about the relationship between our ‘interior’
and ‘exterior’ lives & emotions.