Artists win for painting, drawing and photography
Thirteen Bears from the Middle and Upper Schools earned honors for their paintings, drawings and photographs at the 2016 regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, which each year draws some 300,000 submissions in 29 art and writing categories.
Middle schoolers Landon Sells '21 and Coby Shrensky '21 won Gold Keys, the highest regional award, for their abstract paintings, respectively titled Bright Dreams (1 above) and Abstract vs. Geometric (2). Their paintings move on to the national competition, where a panel of judges will select winners based on originality, technique and "emergence of a personal vision."
Franco Abdala-Arata '16 scored a Silver Key, the second highest regional award, for his uncanny portrait of Pope Francis (3), and fellow Upper School student Will Jarrett '19 also took home a Silver Key for his cheekily titled painting When a Hipster Dies (5).
Several other Bears received honorable mention recognition for their prowess with a paintbrush: Sky Cui '18 and Andrew Engel '18 for their still-life paintings respectively titled The Golden Pear (6) and Turtle Crawling in Red (7); Luke Glenn '16, also a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honoree last year, for Migration (4), his rendering of birds in flight; Joseph Koegel '19 for his vibrant animal portrait The Canadian Moose (8); and Middle School artist Alex Kapelina '20 for the wooly mammoth painting All of My Friends Are Gone (9).
Matthew Lowrie '18 and West Shaw '18 showcased their talent behind the lens of a camera. Lowrie received an honorable mention award for his photograph Shadow of a City (10), a striking shot of New York City from above, while Shaw earned honorable mention for White Lightning (11), his sleek photograph of a car driving at dusk.
The Bears rounded out their strong showing in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards with two honorable mentions in the drawing category, both for Middle School students: Michael Gilbert '20 received recognition for the subtly colored Cleansing Clarity (12), and Jordan Rose '21 for his eye-catching rendering of a compass, Compass Rose (13).
Past winners of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards — which, since 1923, have sought to cast a national spotlight on teenagers, grades 7 through 12, who possess extraordinary artistic and literary talent — include painter Andy Warhol, photographer Richard Avedon, authors Truman Capote and Stephen King, and writers/filmmakers Robert Redford and Lena Dunham.
The 2016 national award winners will be announced in March.
Related articles:
- Landon, Holton 8th graders learn what it takes to lead
- Landon's emphasis on balance has served me well (blog by Jack Strabo '10)
- Why theater is important (blog by English teacher Matt Dougherty)