Cat-Han Nguyen's senior project discusses two major themes explored in their VAPA classes. The first theme is making art personal by managing time and exploring different mediums to find a preferred style of conte and charcoal drawings. A particularly personal project was a mask reflecting emotional issues like depression. The second theme is incorporating emotion into pieces to reflect feelings, like a painting showing hopelessness through eyes to depict the effects of war. Cat-Han Nguyen lists VAPA classes taken and projects completed exploring these themes of personalization and emotion.

1. Cat-Han Nguyen VAPA Senior Project

3. Theme 1: Making it Personal A major lesson I learned was to manage my time and to stay focused and on task. Particularly in my IB art class where I explored myself through the art, I was forced to motivate myself to do the art and to meet goals where no one would push me. When I failed to meet the required deadlines, or did not manage my time well, I found that I would rush through a project and often not do as well on it as I could have. It has taught me that in the future, in life, it is very important to manage time. As an artist, the personalization of a piece of art has pushed me to explore different mediums, from plaster to wire and wax. Through experimentation, trial and error, I have found that my preferred medium is conte and charcoal.

4. Major Example: The Mask Project By far the most directly personal, up front project I've ever done is the mask project. The assignment was very simple and left up to interpretation: do a piece using the concept of the mask. I decided that I would design a piece reflecting the idea of the emotional mask instead of a traditional, physical mask. In the past, I've dealt with some emotional isssues that I confronted directly on this piece. The emotional mask. Depression. Suicide.

6. Theme 2: Emotion Another Major theme in my work, especially my later work is the theme of emotion. As a very emotional person, emotion in the arts is a very big thing for me. I have always done pieces that in some way reflected a particular emotion, more often than not, one I was feeling. Whenever I made art, I would incorporate emotion into it. This is why things like still lifes never interested me.

7. Major Example: The Baby For this particular piece, I was trying to show the effects of war. I tried to show hopelessness and sadness subtly through the eyes. This piece represented a breakthrough in that I found out I was good at controlling value and at showing expression.