Gallery show: Local high school seniors share their best artworks and creative process
“Rat man,” Thomas Allen, BMHS: This is Rat man, and when I was making him I was not thinking about anything. I just thought that he was funny and that I liked making him. He’s like 8’6″ and is made from cardboard, plaster, fabric, popsicle sticks, yarn and paint.
Thomas Allen | Special to the Daily
“The Observer,” Harrison Byrne, BMHS: My portfolio this year is based around the human psyche. In my portfolio, there are works about the five senses, perception, fears, the subconscious and other things that go on in the human mind. This piece is made using 35mm photography prints as well as film negatives.
Harrison Byrne | Special to the Daily
Mia Conley, EVHS: My investigation is driven by the sentiment that people today see themselves as separate from the earth and natural world rather than a part of it. It is about the consequences of this disconnect as well as the belief that humans are nature.
Mia Conley | Special to the Daily
Mailyn Garay, EVHS: My personal experience began in Honduras until I immigrated to the United States in August 2008 when I was six years old. My sustained investigation documents how both Honduran and American cultures and values have shaped the person I am today.
Mailyn Garay | Special to the Daily
Hannah Litt, BMHS: My portfolio this year focuses on issues young women may deal with in their everyday lives: coping mechanisms, rape culture and over-sexualization. This piece represents detachment, a very common coping mechanism that can make someone feel like they are floating through life instead of living.
Hannah Litt | Special to the Daily
Hannah Litt, BMHS: My portfolio this year focuses on issues young women may deal with in their everyday lives: coping mechanisms, rape culture and over-sexualization. This piece represents detachment, a very common coping mechanism that can make someone feel like they are floating through life instead of living.
Hannah Litt | Special to the Daily
Elena Maldonado, EVHS: My investigation is about profit vs. nature. It encompasses the idea that humans, governments and countries value money and their economies over the well-being and health of nature and the planet. The idea that we act on demand and desire over necessity and the state of the planet. The idea that we always choose money over nature and animals.
Elena Maldonado | Special to the Daily
“Eyes on me,” Cynthia Miramontez, BMHS: My portfolio this year is based on my anxiety disorder/paranoia and how it has affected me in my daily activities. In the beginning of my senior year my portfolio was based on education and the culture of education from different perspectives but as my art progressed it became dimmer, with bold statements.
Cynthia Miramontez | Special to the Daily
Courtney Turgeon, EVHS: I used to spend a lot of my time in my room when I was younger, daydreaming about visiting worlds from cartoons I watched like “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,” “The Fairly Odd Parents,” or just making my own. I wanted to tell a story through my artwork about a girl lost in her own imaginary world, all within her bedroom.
Courtney Turgeon | Special to the Daily
Kate Sparhawk, BMHS: Throughout my collection, the pieces go from structured and colorless to colorful and free-flowing. This final piece is representative of the beauty that can come from accepting and loving the individual and everything that comes with being unique.
Kate Sparhawk | Special to the Daily
High school seniors this year have not had a traditional senior spring filled with ditch days, spirit weeks and graduation ceremony prep. Students in AP Art courses have missed out on end-of-year gallery shows, where they would have gotten a chance to showcase their best work to date.
Advanced Placement art courses are meant to help students develop portfolios to submit to art schools and programs at universities with their written application. These studio-based classes don’t have an exam; instead, students submit a completed portfolio to the AP governing body, the College Board. These are judged on a five-point scale, just like the tests. Once students get to their colleges, they may be able to redeem their high scores for college credit.
The artwork here has been created by seniors at Battle Mountain High School and Eagle Valley High School and submitted by their art teachers, Max DeVito and Amanda Hawkins respectively. Artist statements have been edited for brevity and style.
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