Alice Bennett.

Unit 5.

Contextual influences.

Sister Corita.

Famously known as Sister Corita her birth name is Francis Elizabeth Kent, during the 1960’s and 1970’s she gained international fame for her vibrant serigraphs. A Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, she ran the Art Department at Immaculate Heart College until 1968.Corita’s art reflects her commitment to social justice, her spirituality, her hope for peace, and her delight in the world. She worked almost exclusively with silkscreen and serigraphy, helping to establish it as a fine art medium.

After graduating from Immaculate Heart College, she taught grade school in British Columbia.  By the 1960s, she was using popular culture such as song lyrics and advertising slogans as raw material for her work, this gave her work more meaning and substance. Corita’s cries for peace in the era of the Vietnam War were not always welcome. For example in 1965 her "Peace on Earth" Christmas exhibit in IBM’s New York show room was seen as too subversive and Corita had to amend it. Kent created several hundred serigraph designs, for posters, book covers, and murals
She was friends with Alfred Hitchcock, John Cage, Saul Bass, Buckminster Fuller and Charles and Ray Eames. Other influential friends of hers included Ben Shahn, Harvey Cox and the Berrigan brothers.
August was Corita’s time for her own art making. During the three weeks between semesters, she and her students would work round the clock printing new serigraph designs by the hundreds. Corita’s chronic insomnia no doubt made some of this possible, but it was often accompanied by a bleak depression.

Her artwork, with its messages of love and peace, was particularly popular during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout all her work she uses bright colours, bold shapes and creates a lively atmosphere for the viewer. I really enjoy how the bright colours draw you in to take a closer look at the true meaning of the piece.

‘Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there only make.’ – Sister Corita Kent. This is my favourite thing I found about Sister Corita. To say that there is no mistake means that even if you experiment with something and it does not turn out how you expected, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It basically means that you shouldn’t give up until you get the outcome you desire.

From looking at her work I think I will start to use more colour with in my work. This will make parts stand out more and attract people’s attention. However I will not use colour throughout all of my work because I believe it will make it too over powering and loose the detail within my drawings.

References

https://www.corita.org/coritadb/index.php?id=5&option=com_content&task=view

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corita_Kent