On Monday, March 29, friends and families gathered in the Clements Hall to appreciate and support the AP Studio Art class for presenting their year-long progress and accomplishments.

Each year, Hockaday’s AP Studio Art students focus their efforts surrounding a specific concentration discussed and selected by the class. The students are able to embed their own personalities, experiences and ideas into the concentration to develop their own sub-concentration.

Although there’s no right or wrong in art, the curriculum requires not only an equal amount of work ethic from students but also their own unique interpretation and lots of professionality. Since the class is an AP course, the students will complete a portfolio in May, and their work will be reviewed and graded by the College Board.

The theme for the 2018-2019 school year is Integrate//Isolate. The student artists of the graduating Class of 2019 each present their own interpretations of this theme in their respective concentrations:

Cirrus Chen

Chen chooses windows as her concentration. Exploring the extended meaning of windows, Chen portrays windows not only as a connection between the external and internal spaces but also a link between individuals and cultures.

Dawn Grillo

Grillo focuses her concentration on Black Girl Magic. Wanting the African American community to be encouraged in feeling confident of their identities in today’s society, Grillo uses different mediums to challenge stereotypes. Inspired by her own racial identity, Grillo uses her pieces to confront and twist stereotypes to show the absurdness of such views.

Grace Heusinger

Inspired by the complicity of texture, Heusinger applies her ceramics experience into Studio Art creations. Heusinger is very intrigued by the concept of art itself, and she explores the feeling of discomfort in her concentration.

Sam Jackson

Jackson’s concentration focuses primarily on the interplay between nature and artificiality. Inspired by her enthusiasm of environment, Jackson wants to express her affection through her artworks while conveying her expression to the viewers.

Meghna Jain

Enthusiastic about math, Jain chooses her concentration on the intersection of art and math. In order to break the traditional boundary of art, Jain discovers the connection between art and math and employs art to visually represents the later.

Tosca Langbert

Langbert, who wants to refine her techniques on areas where she did not have a lot of experience in, gravitates her concentration towards the portrayal of reflective objects–something “really challenging but also fun to draw,” she said.

Senior Kristi Li

Li’s concentration focuses on the sense of being lost and emotionless. Li, who always identifies herself as a “happy person”, was inspired after realizing that she had overlooked the feelings of frustration and upset. To explore the isolated side of her own emotions, Li set out to reconcile her feelings with her work.

Senior Hallet Thalheimer

Thalheimer, having previously studied AP Studio Art in junior year, continues to pursue her interest in the course this year. Thalheimer decided to devote her concentration to the depiction of the female body in American society and what it means for her sense of self. Inspired by her own and others’ experiences of being objectified or losing control of one’s body, Thalheimer defines integrate and isolate as disconnection between one’s mind and body.

The exhibition of the AP Studio Art students’ work is currently being held at the Ann Bower Gallery from March 25 to April 5. Make sure to stop by if you haven’t!

Story and photos by Emily Wu