How Students Think: Efficacy of Surrealism as an Avenue for the Generation and Expression of Thought among Fine Art Students at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
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Date
2024-12
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EAJASS
Abstract
Surrealism is one of the most fascinating expressive genres of Art and seems to
engage students in a very profound manner in the way they perceive themselves,
the essence of their individuality, their inherent ideas, emotions and thought
processes. In retrospect, it can be viewed from the perspective that it provides a
unique opportunity for individual students to express points of view from imageries
that emanate from the state of their minds. At the University level, surrealism
particularly in drawing, has emerged as a potent visual consolidation of the ability
of students to galvanize thoughtfulness that applies to their personal psyche and
general outlook towards occurrences and upheavals in their lives. This study sought
to examine how students think through surrealist inspirations as a basis of their
imaginative work and the extent to which they were able to internalize and embed
the basic tenets of surrealism such as distortion of forms, bizarreness of
composition or grotesqueness in artistic compositions of their own. The study also
sought to determine if indeed these new surrealist compositions carried any social
message that was derived from the drawings themselves in order to underscore
possible contextual meaning. The final year cohort of students involved in this
study had not done any surrealist work before and were introduced to the concept
of surrealism and its potential for individual expression through the discussion of
selected previous works of past students at the same level. This was deemed useful
as they were able to initially internalize the nature of compositions and the possible
derivation of surrealist images such as those that manifest in the subconscious mind
and other dreamlike dispensations. The students subsequently produced a
significant body of work from which pieces were selected for this study using the
criteria of visual impact such as profoundness of the surrealism, level of execution
using pencil and social message. The analysis of the work was done using the
analytical framework provided. The students were engaged in weekly class
presentations of their individual work that provided the opportunity for critiquing
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Wango, K. (2024). How Students Think: Efficacy of Surrealism as an Avenue for the Generation and Expression of Thought among Fine Art Students at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya. East African Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 7(2), 394- 433. https://doi.org/10.37284/eajass.7.2.2535