By Tanis Gillis
The wide-eyed face of a girl peers out from beneath a hood against a spray-painted back drop. A gnarled piece of driftwood is transformed into a rendition of Vincent van Gogh’s timeless work “Starry Night.”
These are just a couple of the imaginative pieces on display at the Alberta High School of Fine Arts and Foothills Composite High School’s current exhibition called “We Are Here Right Now.” Curated by art student Lindsay Sorg, under the direction of visual arts teacher Janie Zwack and student teacher Meghan Verkerk, the display showcases the wide range of talents at the school.
“The title means that our art is here right now and it’s not going to change,” explained Sorg, an art student and teacher’s assistant at the school. “We are evolving, so later on our art will be different, but right now we’re going to show it how it is.”
About 25 pieces are on display in a diverse range of mediums, including sculpture, acrylic paintings and graphite drawings. The exhibition, located in the school’s art gallery, has already received glowing reviews from those who attended the opening night reception last week.
Sorg said that although she has helped curate art shows at the high school before, this time she took on a few more responsibilities. A call for submissions was made and students from all disciplines at the school, from fine arts to welding to woodwork, were encouraged to enter their work. Sorg was part of the jury process, which meant sifting through submitted pieces to choose those that would best fit the theme of the exhibition.
“I loved every piece that we picked,” she said. “I think they’re all awesome. Every little piece is unique and every piece has its own twist to it, because every student is different.”
Sorg, a Grade 12 student who is already an accomplished artist herself, has a painting called “Defiance Under the Hood” on display in the exhibit. By adding an extra medium to her work, on top of standard acrylic paints, she’s created something that uniquely represents her passion as an artist.
“I love spray paint, I love graffiti and tattoos,” she said, adding her dream is to become a tattoo artist. “For that piece, I remember I was walking downtown one day and I saw this girl with her hood up and she looked so content. I wanted to interpret her face on a piece but use my twist with graffiti and spray paint over top of it.”
Visual arts teacher Janie Zwack said students got a taste of life as a professional artist, including dealing with rejection, by submitting pieces to the juried art exhibition. But even having a piece rejected can help boost an artist’s confidence, she said, adding the experience can provide opportunities to learn and grow.
“It’s very much like the real world,” she explained. “Our art gallery, in this situation, is run just like a professional gallery. Students submit their work, there is a jury process and then they receive their letters of acceptance or rejection.”
She said the school is geared towards preparing its budding artists for professional careers in the arts and that the fine arts program covers all aspects of being an “active and practising artist.” Zwack added that this particular show was created to bring together and to celebrate the talents of students from throughout the school.
“I’m always taken aback by the immense and vast talents and gifts that our students have at our school,” Zwack said. “That’s not just in visual arts, that’s right across the board. We have some amazingly talented students, in so many disciplines, here at the school.”
“We Are Here Right Now” runs at the Palindrome Gallery at the Alberta High School of Fine Arts/Foothills Composite High School until the end of March.
