How do you create expressionist art?

i'm using the expressionism art style and conte as the media and the theme i'm using is inequality for an art project for school. i dont fully grasp what makes expressionism art expressionism art. every website i've looked at doesn't exactly answer my question. i want to know what charcteristics make it expressionism art such as distortion, brush strokes etc. also if i dont distort it much and just have a bunch of symbols such as hands and other objects representing things does it have to be more abstract than that or how do i make it expressionism art?