2020 Hackley AP Art Virtual Gallery Show

WELCOME TO THE 2020 AP STUDIO ART THESIS GALLERY

THE 2020 AP STUDIO ART THESIS GALLERY Every spring, the entire Visual Arts Department excitedly awaits the presentation of final portfolios by our AP Studio Art seniors. And each year, the quality, breadth and ambition of the senior work on display in Allen Memorial Hall seems to somehow exceed the department’s expectations, and raise the high bar set by so many past years of talented and creative senior artists. The annual AP Studio Thesis Exhibition is in many ways the fuel that drives our department engine forward.Year after year, students from all three divisions excitedly visit the senior show, and countless are inspired by what they see to take an art course, hone their developing craft, or simply just to look more carefully and wonder at the world around them. And, of course, the annual spring Thesis Exhibition is the final step for the seniors themselves on their AP Studio journey; a long, exhausting, and at times arduous climb that began in earnest in their junior year.

Sadly, and like so many other eagerly anticipated spring events on the Hilltop, this year’s AP Studio Art Thesis Exhibition in Allen Memorial Hall is not to be. Yet, despite the frustrations and extraordinary challenges they’ve faced these last months, Hackley’s senior artists have continued their climb- day by day, week by week, drawing by drawing, painting by painting… and in the face of some very steep odds, they have all reached the summit together. They may not have arrived to the precise place they originally planned, and resultantly enjoy the full, sweeping view of their work they envisioned- but they have arrived just the same. And they are all to be heartily congratulated for their accomplishment. The department is immensely proud every year of all of the accomplishments of all the student artists working in all of our art studios- from kindergarten through 12th grade. For their remarkable perseverance, positivism, flexibility, creativity and good will during these past unprecedented months, the department is especially proud of this year’s AP Studio Art seniors. This virtual art gallery, although not fully representative of the senior’s efforts and achievements, will hopefully give the community at least a small sense of how truly extraordinary this year’s AP Studio group is- and as well, give the artists themselves some ground from which they can step off into their next exciting, creative journey.

ALEX GRAY • I have always had a passion for food, and throughout my artistic process I wondered how I could make something so common in our lives into something extraordinary. By taking special notice to the texture, shape, color, and feelings that food evokes in us, I aimed to explore and celebrate the emotional relationship we have with food; essentially taking a common item often found in a fridge or pantry and turning it into an artistic experience. • When I began my investigation, my plan was to focus on food in the broader sense: food consumption, food preparation, food cultivation etc. My first piece was of my sister eating a watermelon. However, after that piece I shifted my focus to the process of creating the food, as I felt that zeroing in on a hand interacting with a food item would better exemplify the relationship between humans and food. • Further, in order to prevent my drawings from being perceived as "still lives", I approached my subjects from unexpected, dramatic angles in order to introduce dynamic movement and energy into my drawings. Additionally, I used colored pencils as they provided a richly saturated palette and allowed me to portray the intricate details in the food.

ALEX GRAY

ALEX GRAY

ALEX GRAY

ANNABEL IVES • A memory or place in time is almost always connected to an object. I looked to explore how the intimate and innocent connection we all have with the toys from our childhood are translated into our adult life in the form of memories. • I experimented with different mediums, including oil pastel, charcoal, graphite, and water colors before finally landing on my true medium, colored pencil. I also experimented with different compositional elements, first just positioning the toys on their own, then including a hand or arm, and lastly a full human figure. This allowed the figures in the drawings to physically interact with the toys, and once that connection was created, my pieces become less about the object and more about memory of interacting/playing with the toys. Each of those elements added new and exciting challenges that pushed me to learn new skills and become familiar with more than just inanimate objects. Also, when I decided to create compositions using the human figure, but with the toys still as a focal point, the central idea of my concentration was added.

ANNABEL IVES

ANNABEL IVES

ANNABEL IVES

CHRISTOPHER ARNOLD • The inquiry that guided my sustained investigation was fueled by my love of both creating art and mathematics.

Inspired by Chuck Close, I created portraiture with non-local color schemes and grids to challenge the way we view our own and other's faces. • My sustained investigation demonstrates practice as I spent every piece further improving my method of blending through directional mark-making, as demonstrated in image 2, the first piece I completed, where the blending is much smoother, whereas in image 1 you can see the direction in the highlight and shadows. I experimented by switching up the grid, in image 3 I did this by shrinking the grids to be half an inch, and in image 1 I made the portrait more complex by adding hexagons into the grid, satisfying the mathematical goal of my inquiry. My sustained investigation demonstrates revision guided by my inquiry as I was constantly revisiting my old pieces to inspire the next piece, in piece 4 I revisited the idea of black and white portraiture first attempted in piece 8, complicating the original idea by changing the perspective of portrait and the cropping, as well as improving upon my stroke-making and blending.

CHRISTOPHER ARNOLD

CHRISTOPHER ARNOLD

CHRISTOPHER ARNOLD

CHIARA KAUFMAN •

I’m as much of an English-nerd as I am an art enthusiast. Since tenth grade, every English paper I’ve written is an attempt to capture how I feel about language—something like what the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge referred to as the Absolute, which, in essence, meant the ineffable.

Writing can approximate these extraordinary feelings but it can’t ever render it complete. I don’t think that, in this sense, art is any different, but at least art can visualize it with colors and texture and gestures that don’t have to “make sense” for them to be effective. Ironically, that visualization is how I think. I never think verbally, only pictorially, and I process every text that I read by translating it as an image into my head. (My English papers, as you may have guessed, are not often too legible). My concentration doesn’t have a central “idea,” but it does have an aim, which is to try to say the things about language that, with language, I never can.

•

I have realized my concentration using a wide swath of materials because language is the most innate mode of human expression, and deserves the greatest range of media. Though impossible to include every possible one, I’ve done my best to experiment with new physical elements in each piece.

My media spans from acrylic paint to styrofoam, oil sticks to india ink, tracing paper to pastels. Although this collage of textures is easily chaotic, I rely on grammatical structures (and often human figures) to ground non-representational imagery. Anybody who has seen my annotations could probably guess that realism, being ordered, is not my strong suit. But beyond the technical challenge, the inspiration for my concentration is literary, particularly focusing on the works of Faulkner and Joyce--and direct representation of their words just doesn’t give justice to what they have accomplished. Furthermore, language is interpretable, as is any form of art. While I may experience it synesthetically, there’s nothing “real,” or, in artistic terms, “realist,” about any art that showcases its inspiration by copying it. I have attempted to confuse both my own and the viewer’s understanding of the subject-matter because what is art saying, really, if not giving its audience a question to discuss?

CHIARA KAUFMAN

CHIARA KAUFMAN

CHIARA KAUFMAN

JACQUELINE DELIA • I’ve always loved experimenting in the kitchen and trying out new desserts. After many days of trial and error and lots of sweet treats later, I loved to share what I had baked in the kitchen with my friends and people around me. My concentration portrays the mouth watering, hunger inducing, and eye pleasing desserts that have been created or enjoyed by me and many others. • When I first started my concentration, I decided to use chalk as my medium since it would allow me to blend with ease, and capture the bright colors that desserts contain. By using chalk, it allowed for smooth transitions between light and darks, and textures that would please the eye. After not feeling like I had enough control because of the thickness and messiness of the chalk itself, I decided to give color pencil a try. After a test run with color pencil, I concluded it was not my medium. Although it gave me the control I had wanted, it lacked the smooth transitions and blending I was so used to with chalk. I then found a happy medium, and continued the rest of my pieces in chalk pencil, giving me the best of both worlds. Once content with my medium and getting over the experimentation process with my pieces, I was able to focus more on my compositional work. I transitioned from one to two subjects, to pieces with as many as 11 yummy desserts! As I had more to draw, it allowed me to work on my directional skills and portray to my viewers the textures and play around with reflections and drip, two concepts I had never experimented with. My work this year has elevated my perception of the food around me and gave me an appreciation of the craftsmanship that goes into baking. I hope my viewer feels the same way.

JACQUELINE DELIA

JACQUELINE DELIA

JACQUELINE DELIA

DYLAN WADE • The line of inquiry that guided my concentration was the exploration of the tensions between the internal and external parts of the human figure. We perceive the external perception of the body, yet I wanted to approach the rich internal world we do not normally see. • I chose to use charcoal to get rich blacks in the shadows and make use of the large value range that comes with this medium. As I continued, I began incorporating graphite which allowed me to refine the details of the portraits and gave access to a range of silvery grays that enriched the previous black and white palette. I chose to refrain from using color, as I wanted to keep my subject matter unconventional. As my concentration evolved, I also varied the sizes of my pieces. The larger works challenged my ability to create sharp details. A significant shift in my concentration is prevalent in the transitions between the anatomic portions of my work and the subjects. I began softening the edges with kneaded erasers in order to create gradual transitions rather than the sharp transitions seen in my earlier pieces. Further, I experimented with composition, using cropping and zooming to provoke different reactions.

DYLAN WADE

DYLAN WADE

DYLAN WADE

SADIE FRIESEN • As a runner and an art student, I have always found the motion and action of sport fascinating. My concentration attempts to explore and capture the elasticity, speed, and force of athletic activity. But rather than freezing the action, my drawings replicate the athletic movement as we actually see and experience it: as a blur. • From the beginning, I used charcoal as my medium because it lends itself naturally to soft edges and subtle, nuanced transitions - all required to depict the blur of motion. I introduced heavy cropping as well as the black and white theme to allow the viewer to focus on the motion of my subject without the distraction of color or extraneous details, allowing the movement, rather than the athlete, to be the central focus. This focus changed between pieces as I transitioned from only legs to more complex, dynamic, and numerous body parts. I used new and different techniques in my drawings than I had before, including brushing charcoal powder onto the paper and working subtractively to achieve a blurred effect. I learned that I needed to capture the hyperfocused parts in order to exaggerate the blurred motion and did so with more intention in my later pieces.

SADIE FRIESEN

SADIE FRIESEN

SADIE FRIESEN

TALIA SHOSHANI • The experiences that form people’s stories have always fascinated me; everyone’s life is equally complex. The unique qualities of eyes are perfect visual representations of those how experiences shape our perspectives of the world. The old expression says “eyes are the window to the soul,” and expressive of personal journies.

• I worked in color to fully show the range of my subjects’ eyes and respective scenes. For my first three pieces (1, 3, 5), I worked in watercolor pencil for the whimsical quality it gave to the reflected image. With my 5th piece (first shown in 10), though, I began using colored pencils for greater precision and more saturated colors; also, approaching the eye more closely to give the viewer a clearer view of the most important element: the reflected place as seen by the subject. It pulls the viewer into my subject’s experience. In my sixth piece (10), I warped the image to match the surface of the eye. This made the drawing easier to understand and more cohesive, conveying that the place is part of the subject. This process has given me a greater appreciation of the ways in which places shape us and for the unique stories each of us holds.

TALIA SHOSHANI

TALIA SHOSHANI

TALIA SHOSHANI

JACKIE VARGAS • I created portraits of family and friends. Focusing on an element that represents a strong interest for each individual, I chose to superimpose visual aspects of it in color over their black and white portrait. I seek to reveal something significant by emphasizing this value contrast, and how one’s passions can bring color into one’s life. I wanted to approach the conventional subject of portraiture in an unexpected way. I struggled with the element’s cut, which divided the black and white and color parts of each person’s face too abruptly and created a lack of integration. This resulted in the element and portrait feeling detached from one another and my drawings feeling flatter. I fixed this by making the cuts follow the curvature of each person’s face, which made all aspects of my pieces better. I also contemplated my decision to leave the backgrounds of most of my pieces white since I wanted the focus of the pieces to be on the portraits themselves. I experimented by incorporating objects into the background. I also wanted my subjects to be more involved with their element, so I began literally introducing them into the piece.

JACKIE VARGAS

JACKIE VARGAS

JACKIE VARGAS

LEAH HOLMES • I've loved stickers since I was a kid. I think people often undervalue stickers, seeing them as childish or trivial.

My concentration seeks to explore how stickers can be used as a tool for expression, providing insight into a person's interests and beliefs. I attempt to do this through colorful colored pencil drawings. I chose colored pencils because they allowed me a fully saturated color palette which gives my pieces energy and heightens the graphic effect of my subject matter. They also allowed me to work with more detailed precision, which was useful for the intricacies of the stickers, such as text. Lastly, this medium allowed for smooth transitions from one hue to the next. My first few pieces were small, and had only a few stickers on them. Upon critiquing with my class, I decided it was necessary to go larger in scale to create a greater physical impact. I also began to put more stickers on my subjects which created an element of rhythm and repetition in my work. This can be seen in piece #7 which features over 20 stickers. In some pieces, I introduced the human figure. I believe this decision strengthened my concentration as it added an element of narrative to my work.

LEAH HOLMES

LEAH HOLMES

LEAH HOLMES

SCHYLAR CHASE • For her senior portfolio, Schylar created a series of richly drawn and dynamically composed portraits that explore and celebrate the urban environment and experience of the Bronx.

SCHYLAR CHASE

SCHYLAR CHASE

SCHYLAR CHASE

AIDAN WILSON • For my senior portfolio, I wanted to bring my passions for art and swimming together.

The combination of these two important aspects of my life in an AP concentration allowed me to explore the form of the human body in the alien environment of water.

My goal was to capture swimmers frozen in a moment of maximum athletic effort during a competition, in order to illustrate not only the intensity of swim racing, but the grace and technique of the sport as well. I chose oil pastel as my medium, because of its ability to create both soft and hard marks- allowing me to best capture the interaction of a figure moving dynamically through water.

AIDAN WILSON

AIDAN WILSON

AIDAN WILSON

ISABELLA BARRETT • Why is it that seeing clouds invoke emotions in us; how can I replicate that? • Clouds have always been known to spark emotion in us, and I wanted to explore in greater detail why. While there are infinite ways clouds could take shape, a constant emotion among skyscape viewers is the gradual feeling of smallness, indeed, insignificance. Living in a highly populated area, I sometimes forget how small we actually are, and by focusing on clouds as my concentration I explored that. I chose to use charcoal as my medium because it gave me more freedom to create harsher contrasts in light and dark. While a large aspect of beauty in clouds is in their vibrant colors, I chose to focus closer on the immense detail and diversity of clouds.

By removing color, I could examine lights and darks, and how light altered the mood of the skyscape. I wanted to have more control of my medium in order to make my pieces more malleable, moving more to abstract than realistic. I chose to make the pieces slightly smaller because we are so used to viewing clouds at a large scale, I wanted to experiment on the emotion it invokes on a smaller size.

ISABELLA BARRETT

ISABELLA BARRETT

ISABELLA BARRETT

NICKY PINK I challenged myself to consider how the light and form interacted in my photographs and how I could manipulate the scenes I was in to create something unique. I was not interested in replicating exactly what I saw, rather I was driven to interpret what I saw at face value and improve on it in order to give my insight and personal perspective on it. I was able to do this by first asking myself, what does this photo mean to me? Why did I take this picture? And finally, how can I edit this in order to demonstrate my vision for the scene?

The details that demonstrate a special attention to the questions I asked are shown through my focus on increased contrast, saturation, and detail. In sunrise photos, I made sure to capture as much color and light as possible and reinforce what I envisioned later in photoshop by increasing saturation. For other landscapes, I made sure to have as much contrast between light as possible, which is evident in my two black and white photos, which have a very deep and dark contrast. Finally, I wanted to make sure to capture as much color and detail as possible. In order to do this, I increased the highlights in photoshop in order to see more of the landscape clearly and to not have it be blocked by sun or glare. Increasing the saturation, contrast, and highlights was done in order to give my unique interpretation and addition to the scenes that I saw when I originally took the picture. While I focused on taking pictures with good light, framing, and scenery, the postproduction aspect was the most crucial as it allowed me to do more than just replicate exactly what I saw.

NICKY PINK

NICKY PINK

NICKY PINK

TAHRYAM TOURE • These photos demonstrate my interpretations of humans' relationship with nature. Through these pictures, I show how humans are a part of nature, but at the same time we contrast with it. Humans come from nature, but in the same breath it seems that we tend to destroy it or at least do it involuntarily. We as a species should look to be one with nature before it is too late, and we do not have a planet to live on anymore. The earth is precious and the more we hurt it, the more it hurts us. In these pictures, the people show through strongly while the natural world lingers in the background just as how we, as humans, seem to put ourselves first before the natural world. This must change before the damage is irreversible.

TAHRYAM TOURE

TAHRYAM TOURE

TAHRYAM TOURE

KATHRYN FERNHOLZ • For her senior independent study in drawing, Kathryn combined her love of art and music by creating a series of dramatically designed drawings of musicians playing their instruments.

KATHRYN FERNHOLZ

TAJAH BURGHER • For her senior independent study, Tajah explored the craft of fashion illustration, ultimately creating a series of hand-painted silk scarves inspired by the theme of the four seasons.

TAJAH BURGHER

TAJAH BURGHER

TAJAH BURGHER