MONROE, Conn. — Paintings in oil and acrylics, charcoal drawings, sculptures and ceramics were on display inside the media center of Masuk High School for the Senior Art Show late Tuesday afternoon. Students talked to visitors about their work, a charcuterie station offered snacks and young artists made sketches upon request.
Assistant Principal Ian Lowell said the event was organized by art teacher Monika Gagnon, who is faculty advisor for the National Art Honors Society, with assistance from Dana Moraniec, a ceramics and sculpture teacher.
“We don’t have the da Vinci Festival this year, so I had to have a way to showcase their talents, the passions of my artists,” Gagnon said. “I love them. I will miss them dearly.”
Gagnon said the exhibits included 20 pieces, five of which students were most proud of and 15 centering around a theme or topic they chose, whether is be social commentary, personal experience or something they are passionate about.
“Overall this is. a completion of all four years, but in particular, it’s their AP portfolio,” she said of the exhibits.
Lowell said the show featured 13 individual boards by AP art students and a collection of other students’ works.
Olivia Neel, who plans to study illustration/animation at the University of Hartford next fall, said her theme was adolescence and teenage development and how it is impacted by divorce.
The right side of her board had a pink background and included more happy childhood memories, including her looking down at herself as a little girl holding a bunch of pink balloons, while looking up.
“Pink is more bright and airy,” Neel said of the color choice.
But there were also signs of unease. One drawing showed a girl lying inside a dollhouse. She and the house were pink, but cracks were forming and blue could be seen through a small window and where a wall had broken off. An older girl’s face can be seen in black and white, peeking in through an open door.
The left side of the display had a blue backdrop and art pieces representing the teenage years. In one blue painting the artist’s mouth is open and a crying little girl’s face is coming out.
“Blue is a mellow color associated with sadness,” Neel said.
Seraphine Lambert’s art exhibit was next to Neel’s. Lambert may pursue a bachelor of fine arts (BFA) degree in painting at Western Connecticut State University, though she is still undecided on what her major will be.
After using acrylic paint her whole life, Lambert said she started working with Windsor & Newton oil paint. Her display focused on nature as a constant companion throughout her life and how it influenced her sense of memory.
One painting showed a tombstone with a red flower placed in front of it. Three wooden crosses could be seen in the background. A robot with angel wings and a halo stood beside the grave. Lambert said the painting was inspired by her dog passing away when she was eight-years-old.
“I connected nature to religion to identity,” said Lambert, who often uses a fish for her religious identity.
“This is me finding out when we eat meat, we’re eating animals,” she said of a painting of someone wearing goggles, a white mask and a red shirt seated in front of a gutted fish.
“It was chicken, but I used fish,” Lambert said of her painting.
Though Christian Kloter will study nursing at the University of Bridgeport, he said art will still be a big part of his life.
“Eventually, I hope to come back to school for art,” he said. “I usually like to do charcoal realism, but I recently experimented with acrylic and oil pastel.”
Kloter’s exhibit was about “the hands that make you.”
“It shows different metaphors of what makes you, you,” he explained.
One of Kloter’s pictures is a horse head, which wasn’t his initial idea when he started drawing.
“I did this one on a whim. It was color pencil. It’s one of my favorite pieces right now,” he said. “My family used to have a horse stable in Newtown called Driftwood Stables. It was a very joyous time for me.”
Kloter used a dark contrast of reds and blues in the background and pastels on the horse head in the foreground with pink, blue and green.
Nick Cone stood in front of his display, while his little brother, Thomas, 10, took his picture with a cellphone. Cone plans to study computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., in the fall.
“I see it more as a hobby for me,” he said of art. “I definitely want to continue painting. I really like working with the oils.”
One of Cone’s paintings shows a skeleton lying down with flowers and a raven standing over it.
“This still life is a representation of the death of innocence,” he said.
The skeleton’s right arm is raised up toward a red lantern, which is not lit.
“This is the life of innocence,” Cone said. “He’s reaching for it and it’s gone out.”
Masuk Principal Steve Swensen was among those attending the show.
“I tell Ms. Gagnon every year I wish I could take her drawing class and learn how to draw, because the incredible work these kids produce is amazing,” Swensen said.
Superintendent Joseph Kobza said, “it just goes to show how talented the kids are by the depth of complexity of the art around the room and what’s interesting is each artist has their own unique style that makes them distinct from everyone else. Ms. Gagnon does a great job in getting the most out of them.”
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