WEST ORANGE, NJ — Visitors to the West Orange Arts Center will have the chance to experience the work of West Orange High School’s Advanced Placement art students in a new exhibit that runs now through April 23.
The exhibit, which will hold a special reception with the artists Friday, March 31, features 40 of the best pieces from the AP program’s eight students: Gabe Andrade, Elika Burton, Santi Butler, Aira Dolfo, Mariel Go, Julian Lloyd, Katie Meyerson and Victoria Sullivan. And while the artists may be young, teacher Heather Young said their talent is immense. Young told the West Orange Chronicle that she believes anyone who sees their work will be impressed.
“I think that people are going to be blown away by how professional they are, how talented they are,” Young said in a March 16 phone interview. “It’s just incredible what they can do.”
Viewers can also marvel at the diverse range of subject matter the art encapsulates, with Young pointing out that each student’s work is different. Lloyd, for instance, incorporated meat into his drawings — a unique idea he said appealed to him simply because he thought it looked nice and because he wanted to learn how to capture the substance’s texture.
For Andrade, inspiration came in the form of notable figures from history. Andrade made single contour line drawings of everyone from Napoleon Bonaparte to Vladimir Lenin to Andrew Jackson, but with the added twist of depicting them differently than the way in which they are usually viewed. For instance, if a person is typically viewed positively, he highlighted their negative attributes and vice versa. By doing so, he said he hopes viewers will see historical figures they thought they knew in a new light.
“You really can’t understand someone unless you see them for everything,” Andrade told the Chronicle in a March 20 interview. “So I’m trying to bring out all the different views and perspectives on a person, really trying to get a real grasp of who they were.”
Butler went in the opposite direction for her art, working with live female models to capture both their figures and personalities. To do this, Butler said she would talk to the models and spend time simply staring at them to get a sense of their auras. Thus, though the person might appear solemn in her drawing, she said she would try to highlight the model’s actual happiness.
Butler then took it a step further, adapting two of her drawings into quilt pieces. The young artist said she was partially inspired to do so by her mother, an avid quilter Butler spent her whole life watching create beautiful pieces. Aside from that, she said she thought quilting would be just the artistic medium to demonstrate the vibrancy she wanted to convey.
“Drawing is very nice, but there’s something about gluing pieces of fabric to make someone’s face that makes it more eclectic,” Butler told the Chronicle in a March 20 interview.
But the exhibit was not meant to be just an opportunity for the students to display their work. Young said she also wanted her students to get a taste of all that professional artists must do when participating in a gallery show. So she had them write their own artist’s statements and arrange their pieces in the arts center, providing help when needed.
Young even had them send out invitations and handle advertising, with Andrade and Meyerson at one point wearing full-body morph suits to bring attention to the show at school. Meyerson said the two attracted quite a few looks as they walked down the hallway, but it seemed to generate interest. She said some teachers have even offered to give extra credit to any student who visits the exhibit.
It was a lot of effort, but the students felt it was all worthwhile. Sullivan, an aspiring fashion designer with two sewn garments and illustrations in the show, said she feels the experience has prepared her for what to expect in the professional art world.
“It’s kind of nice to see how actual artists do this as a career,” Sullivan said in a March 20 interview. “They set up their work, they have an art show, they promote it.”
Of course, the opportunity to show their work in a professional setting is very exciting for the class. The young artists said this is a first for them all, and they appreciate being able to put the experience on their resumes. Meyerson, who specializes in adapting historical photographs through a modern lens, added that it is also a chance to finally show family and friends exactly what they have spent so much time creating. She explained that the class’ tight deadlines often force them to work up to three hours during the school day on their art alone, sometimes even during lunch.
“My friends are like ‘Why aren’t you coming to lunch anymore?’” Meyerson told the Chronicle in a March 20 interview. “I’m like ‘Well, this isn’t going to get painted on its own.’”
Lisa Suss of the West Orange Arts Council, which runs the arts center, believes those family and friends will be astounded by what they eventually see. The visual arts manager at the JCC MetroWest, Suss said she was taken aback by the professional-level quality of the pieces she saw and told the Chronicle that she was especially impressed by each artist’s individuality.
“There’s a range of use of materials and styles and techniques — it’s wonderful,” Suss said in a March 16 phone interview. “It’s also very mature, I think, for 17-year-olds. The fact that each of the students has a definite personality that comes through their work is kind of a mature thing.”
This exhibit marks the first time West Orange student art has been showcased at the arts center, but Suss said she is definitely interested in working with the school district again. She also predicted big things from the AP students featured in this show, adding that she is glad the WOAC could provide an opportunity to build the students’ confidence and inspire them to do other gallery shows.
Art will certainly be a part of the students’ lives in the years to come. Many have been accepted into prestigious art schools such as Parsons School of Design, the School of Visual Arts and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Even Meyerson, who does not intend to pursue an arts degree after graduating, said she is passionate about her art and will always make it a part of her life.
And Young also hopes her students never stop making art. Regardless of what career path they take, she said they can always show their work in galleries. That is especially true now that they have this experience behind them.
“Now that they know the process of how to do it, it makes it a little less frightening for them,” Young said. “I think they’ll be likely to show (their art) to more people.”
For more information on the exhibit, visit http://www.woarts.org/.
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