From early January to February, students in the various Art, Sculpture, and Photo classes produced “pieces of themselves,” using a wide variety of techniques and materials in their work. The goal of the four week project was to have students go beyond their superficial appearances and explore a psychological meaning or experiential understanding of their identity. Regular students worked for around 15 hours to create their pieces; however, advanced students spent around 30 hours in total. The collective gallery will remain up for display in the Black Box until March 31.

The visual art students specifically were encouraged to work in imagery, such as patterns and specific color combinations, and symbols, such as animals or flowers, into their pieces to convey their identity and perception.

“The students in Art 1 and AP Studio Art were supposed to use symbolic imagery to represent something about themselves, whether it’s a personal experience or attribute of some kind,” AP Studio Art teacher  Kimberly Parker said.

The requirements for the students’ art pieces became more complex for each successive art level. For instance, Art 1 classes students simply worked with graphite.

“The emphasis [of the Art 1 assignment] was learning how to shade, apply value, illusion of volume and depth, atmospheric perspective, achieve illusion of depth on a 2D picture plane, using overlapping, and getting the shapes right,”  Parker said.

On the other hand, AP Art students were able to choose what medium to work with. The focus of their assignment was on implementing everything they had learned and knew including their own passions and inspirations

AP Art student junior Darren Wong designed an art piece inspired by the music video for the pop song “Starboy” by “The Weekend.” Wong used prismacolor pencils on bristol paper and created an extremely unique piece with dramatic lighting, shading, and value.

“The whole red pink purple blue scheme [of the music video] inspired me,” Wong said. “I wanted to incorporate both colors. I was working with the blue and decided it would be cool to add some red on the face as well. The whole video inspired me to place my self portrait in my room. I wanted to convey a darker side of things, something that’s not super bright and happy all the time. The portrait kind of exposed the reality of what I feel sometimes, the hardships I’ve gone through, and how I sometimes want to be alone and think life through.”