Photo by Jenny Guo/The Choate News
On Sunday May 13, the seniors in Visual Arts Concentration held their end-of-year exhibit. Known as the Senior Visual Arts Exhibition, the show included a variety of works, from papier-mâché sculptures to decorated decks of cards. Throughout the process of producing their final pieces, students pushed themselves to challenge new art forms, resulting in fascinating pieces. What inspired these seniors to create their work?
For Haley Williams ’18, inspiration came from moments of raw and intense emotions. “They prompt me to find an outlet through creating visual pieces,” she said. Julian Yau ’18, on the contrary, based a lot of his artwork on comic books he made when he was in primary school. “Some of my art is just random thoughts or conscious awareness, and others are inspired by different artists. A lot of the work I create is based on the relationships I develop in art programs.”
While some artists like to stick to a similar process when producing artwork, Williams uses a different process for each piece. “I usually don’t plan anything. If the piece is large I usually work for an hour at a time over the course of a few weeks. Sometimes I will sit down and ‘finish’ a piece in one sitting. I don’t like to stress the details. It’s about the mindset while I’m creating more than anything.”
Ellie Latham ’18 had a completely different mentality, conceiving a plan in the beginning of each project. As a dual arts con student, working in both visual arts concentration and costuming, Latham wanted to incorporate her experience from costuming into her show by creating three-dimensional pieces. “I have three 3D pieces in total. The corset piece expresses a message of being confined and using sticking on labels from many mass-production brands is used to imply the terrible labor policies for the workers. The butterfly piece, which includes many types of fabrics, is a way me to demonstrate why costuming is valid, and the last piece is a reflection of my childhood experiences.”
Moe Janneh ’18 drew over 80 different people on campus. “At first, it was easy because I could just draw my friends and people I was close with, and most of the time they would say yes. However, as I drew more and more people, I needed to approach people I wasn’t very close with, sometimes even faculty members, so it became more challenging.”
After many long hours of hard work, most seniors are proud of their final pieces. Williams said, “My work is an honest reflection of what’s in my head. There are some pretty things and some disgusting things. I have many sides and I like to allow each to come forward and express themselves. I am always happy with the outcome when it reflects my truth.”
Alan Luo ’18, who did a one term special project, is also happy about the outcome of the exhibit. Luo did not anticipate his art growing to such a large scale: “In the beginning, it was only supposed to be three to four pieces of art in each building, with around 20 pages of explanation. Towards the end, it became around 40 pieces of work with explanations surrounding every piece of art.”
Although most seniors were very proud of the art they displayed, Julian Yau’18 has mixed feelings about his work. He said, “I’m indifferent about my work. I don’t think I hold much value in the art I’ve created, other than it reminding of certain moments in Arts Con.”
The students were nervous about publicly exhibiting their final work. Janneh said, “I anticipated being nervous, yet once I started talking, it was a lot easier to express myself and to tell other people where I was coming from.” Williams, in contrast, was not at all nervous. “I get so much support and love that I appreciate greatly. The work I do is for me in the end so, I don’t stress when I show my art to the world.”
The variety of art forms at the Senior Art Exhibit left viewers amazed, demonstrating the hard work put in.
