The most advanced art class offered at Deerfield Academy is Topics Tutorial taught by Art Teacher Angel Abreu. In this class, six dedicated artists work hard to perfect their skills in various mediums while using a diverse range of artistic techniques. Their final project for the year is Animal Farm paintings, which incorporate pages from George Orwell’s novel as the background. Mr. Abreu, a professional artist himself, has created similar assignments for previous Topics classes. In past years, he has taken influence from books such as Shakespeare’s, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Franz Kafka’s America.
In this year’s project, the paintings feature a celebrity caricature with a realistic animal body. Throughout the winter, the class read and analyzed Orwell’s best seller, drawing inspiration from it to create museum-level paintings. Mr. Abreu encouraged the artists to “keep an open mind. Many of them had actually already read the book, but I think that it was a little different reading it within the context of their assignment.”
The artists then utilized Photoshop to combine caricatures with their animal of choice as a reference after reading the book. Mr. Abreu found the process of matching celebrities with animal bodies both enjoyable and amusing, saying that, “we were all roaring with laughter in class.” Some of the examples of the combinations that the artists used were Andrew Tate as a chihuahua and Robin Williams as a sheep.
From the perspective of the artists involved in this project, one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable aspects was the complete and unrestricted freedom they were given to fully express and unleash their creativity. With minimal limitations and constraints placed upon them by Mr.Abreu, artists were able to explore new ideas, experiment with different techniques and styles, and truly push themselves to their artistic limits. When asked about his favorite part of the assignment, Abreu said that he is super excited to see the final product. He enjoys “seeing the literal light bulbs above each student’s head,” when looking at the hard work that they have put into such a challenging and impressive project.
The main challenges of this project was paying proper tribute to each celebrity while maintaining a recognizable amount of detail on their face. Sophia Wolbach ‘23, who featured Marilyn Monroe as a bald eagle, said, “Trying to be able to like get people to recognize who this is is a huge thing. In past iterations of this project, Mr. Abreu and his team have written the last names of the person on it, but part of this is having [viewers] know who [the] [subject] is.”
Once the panels are finished, they will be displayed in Deerfield’s dining hall for the student body to admire. They will remain up on display on campus until the school year concludes. Following the departure of all Deerfield students, the paintings are scheduled to travel to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut for travelers to enjoy as they pass through the airport.
As the start of college art lessons draws near, the artists of the Topics Tutorial class find themselves reflecting on the vast wealth of knowledge and experience they have accumulated throughout their four-year journey here. Reflecting on his students’ next chapters, Mr. Abreu said, “I want them to know that anything and everything is possible, and I’ve seen such growth in these young artists not only this year but [also] the last few years… I could not be any more proud of them. I want them to soak in whatever their professors on the next level tell them about, but I’ve already told them that I also want them to question things.”