Room 221 is usually a plain, empty room with over 50 chairs and a few tables at the front. But for one hour on January 23, the chairs were pushed aside and a bit of color was added to the room as students from art teacher Mrs. Dyson’s AP Studio Art class displayed their work.

Every year studio art students are required to create 12 pieces relating to a central focus and medium throughout their first semester. Than later as a final exam, the students create a display for their art, which staff members and parents are invited to check out.

Joe Sullivan

Trees and people were senior Joe Sullivan’s focus for the art pieces he created using a mixture of pastels and oil paints. Sullivan was inspired by world problems that people often ignore.

One of his pieces, which discusses deforestation, is depicted by a sapling on a blue background.

“[The background] is blue and cold because you’re helping out by planting a tree, but you’re not helping out the whole forest,” Sullivan said.

Lily Lefevre

Senior Lily Lefevre used colored pencils as her medium for her pieces focusing on plants and animals. For each one of her pieces, Lefevre paired a plant with an animal in order to portray a certain emotion. Her image of a deer with cherry blooms {see left} is meant to invoke a feeling of hopefulness and serenity. A life-long love of nature was Lefevre’s main inspiration for her display.

“When I was younger I was in love with animals and nature, and so they were the main focus of my drawings for the longest time,” Lefevre said. “As I got older, I got into other mediums but in these pieces I wanted to go back to my roots.”

Alesandra Bernardini

Senior Alesandra Bernardini used pencils to draw portraits and natural imagery. Faces and portraits were some of the first things Bernardini learned to draw when she was younger and she naturally gravitates to them.

Although many of Bernardini’s  portraits are of celebrities such as David Bowie, her favorite piece is her self portrait {see right}. According to Bernardini, she tends to go with the flow in her art and tries to make her portraits her own.

“[My creative process] is whatever speaks to me in the moment,” Bernardini said. “It could be anything actually. I couldn’t focus on one thing and stay on that track so I stray.”

Rachel Winsor

Senior Rachel Winsor used alcohol markers and colored pencils to create her pieces, which are meant to provoke thought about social justice.

One of Winsor’s pieces which she titled “Mathew’s Timberwolf” depicts a wolf with two wooden stacks in its eyes. This piece is an allusion to bible verse 7:5 and is meant to discuss hypocrisy and not judging other people.

“I’m not a public speaker by any means, so art is my way of talking about these issues,” Winsor said.

Ender Jimenez 

Senior Ender Jimenez used pencils, colored pencils, and alcohol markers for his medium on his twelve pieces, which focus on creature design. Jimenez is interested in going into the field of game design as a concept artist, so he decided to create his own video game-style monsters for his display pieces.

While coming up with his designs, he tried to pay attention to the biological aspects of each one to make sure they make sense and can function in their environment. One of Jimenez’s largest inspirations for his designs was the movie Avatar. 

“They did really well on the designs of the animals, and I wanted to create my own stuff,” Jimenez said.

Emma Payeur 

Emma Payeur used mix medium for her dance-inspired pieces. A dancer herself, Payeur created pieces that personify common dance sayings and aspects.

One of her pieces depicts a dancer surrounded by googly eyes and is meant to represent the saying “dance like nobody is watching” {right side of basket}. Payeur took a free approach to creating her work and let the medium she was using lead the way.

“I started playing around with the mediums and than got an idea from what I did,” Payeur said.

Alp Okyar 

Senior Alp Okyar used oil paints to create abstract images for his display pieces. According to Okyar, there is no set focus for his works.

“The focus doesn’t matter. You need to find it,” said Okyar.

All photos by Madison Martin