Discovering Ourselves Through Art

15 hours ago

2 min read

Benjamin Preschool Senec

Kindergarten Class, 5-6 yo

As we explore the themes of me, my friends and my family, we also discover what makes each of us unique. We learn that we are all different in the way we look, behave, think and express ourselves, while at the same time sharing many of the same feelings, wishes and dreams.

In our art activities, we explored the world of self-portraits. The children learned what a self-portrait is and what artists need to pay attention to when portraying themselves. We focused on the many small details of the face that children sometimes leave out when drawing – eyelashes, eyebrows, nostrils, lips, teeth, ears and hair. We carefully observed our own features and chose the colours of our eyes and hair according to how we really look.

Through this process, we compared our portraits and discovered that although we may look different from one another, we also have many things in common. At the same time, each of us has our own skills, interests, preferences and talents that make us special.

Our exploration continued during our visit to Nedbalka Gallery, where the kindergarteners from both of our Benjamin locations had the opportunity to discover works by Slovak artists and explore how artists see and interpret the world around them through colour, shapes and different artistic approaches.

Naturally, we were especially interested in self-portraits. We found one, talked about what we could see, tried to describe it and compared the artist’s self-portrait with the portraits we had created ourselves in kindergarten.

For us, introducing children to art and culture is not simply about learning what a gallery or a painting is. It is about developing their aesthetic awareness, curiosity and positive relationship with culture, while helping them feel comfortable and inspired in places such as galleries and other cultural institutions. We believe that these early experiences can become a meaningful part of how children see themselves, others and the world around them.