On Friday, March 22, 11 Los Altos High School student artists displayed their art at the New Museum Los Gatos (NUMU). The art program that selected their pieces, ArtNow, is an award-winning exhibition and educational program that seeks to give high school artists a platform to showcase their work.
This year, NUMU received over 800 submissions from 45 Santa Clara County high schools, and only 82 pieces were chosen for the exhibit. LAHS had the highest number of selected students out of 26 represented high schools, a feat attributed largely to art teacher Christine An, who encouraged all of her students to apply.
“Being able to see the scale and details of other students’ pieces is inspiring and challenges students to do more,” An said. “It validates and celebrates students as artists.”
“I especially love NUMU because it’s one of the few programs that truly honors the individual voices of student artists as they are, without forcing work into a narrow theme,” featured artist junior Nicole Park said.
This year, the theme for the exhibition is “In Transition,” which An believes has helped students reflect on their own past experiences.
“In a world of conformity, this project has allowed students to appreciate their own experiences, whether they were positive or negative, because those experiences are what make them who they are today,” An said.
An also believes that external exhibitions such as these create freedom for students to make more personal and unique pieces, “without academic judgment.”
“I think it’s a great way to get yourself out there,” junior Joyce Ren said. “They treat you like artists, not just high school students. It feels really professional and it’s nice to be recognized.”
Joyce’s painting depicts an image of three different versions of herself placed on a porcelain plate. The piece is titled “Chinoiserie,” a term for a westernized interpretation of Chinese art styles.
“To me, [the word Chinoiserie] was kind of interesting because I felt that it encapsulated that idea of a westernized version of something that’s meant to be very traditionally Chinese, and I felt that that was a very good way to describe my relationship with my own culture,” Joyce said.
Nicole’s piece, “The Quilt,” is an animation with over three hundred hand drawings. In the film, the main character tries to piece together the body of a deceased loved one using quilt squares, but ultimately decides to let that person go.
“In my interpretation, [the theme is] all about exploring shifts in emotion and perspective within the context of the death of a loved one,” Nicole said. “[‘The Quilt’] delves into how these shifts can shape us as we move forward in the wake of a loss.”
Junior Sarah Ang’s piece is about losing a language with age, expressing how she used to be fluent in Mandarin, but now struggles in her AP Chinese class. To make her piece, she used iris leaves from her yard and weaved them together, placing a print on top. The print has the characters hui bu lai, Mandarin for “I can’t go back.”
“[My artwork] is about conformity and how that’s an overarching thing that us as teenagers feel,” Sarah said. “We kind of lose our tradition and culture in the face of wanting to conform and be the same as other people.”
All three of these artists plan to continue submitting to exhibitions, as they hope to prompt connection and emotion through the eyes of viewers.
“The feedback I receive from others who see themselves reflected in my art helps me stay grounded in my perspective,” Nicole said. “Sharing these parts of myself is a tremendously raw experience, but also a tremendously empowering one.”
The exhibition will be available to the public until June 30 and is open from 10 am to 4 pm, Friday to Sunday. Entrance is free for students and general admission is $10.
