By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
It’s one thing to create a painting or sculpture and see it on display at Lawrence High School, and quite another thing to see it on exhibit at an art gallery.
That’s exactly what several Lawrence High School students are discovering while their artwork is being shown at the Abud Family Foundation for the Arts gallery. The art space is located in the office park at 3100 Princeton Pike in Building 4.
The artwork will be on display until June 18. It can be viewed on Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. A private viewing of the artwork can be arranged by contacting the Abud Family Foundation for the Arts.
The art ranges from paintings to photography and sculpture and even a "minimalist" display that draws on real-life objects and a collage that is left open to interpretation by the viewer. The students were asked by their art teachers to choose their best works.
The show offers the students a chance to experience what it is like to have one’s art on display in a professional gallery, said Lawrence High School art teachers Cheryl Eng, Khalilah Sabree and Sean Carney. They were in attendance at the June 4 opening night reception at the gallery.
"It’s an experience for them to see a professional space and hang the show," Ms. Eng said. The students learned how to display their work, using the hanging system that a professional art gallery would use.
Harrison Turner, who is a senior, has several artworks on display — charcoal, colored pencil and oil paintings as well as digital photographs. The paintings were based on photographs of the subjects, which included a friend and the artist’s dog. There is a self-portrait, too.
Harrison also put on display two digital photographs. In one, he superimposed a photograph of a friend on top of an American flag because his friend is interested in enlisting in the U.S. military. The second photograph shows flowers superimposed on the profile of a friend’s face.
"I like to get my hand in every medium," Harrison said. "I like to use colored pencils, charcoal and digital stuff. I do a lot of drawing and painting. It’s good to be versatile. You get familiar with the materials that are out there."
Each medium presents its own challenges, he said. Oil is easy to change if the color is not "right," he said, while chalk and pastels are more about "smudging" the colors and where to place them. It is better to plan out a drawing before putting it down on paper.
"I get an idea in my head and I want to get it out onto paper," he said. "As long as I have a paper and a pencil, I am always drawing. When I have a little bit of free time, I like to draw. This year, I have been drawing portraitures."
Harrison said his "true dream" of being an artist is to be in the realistic vein. He said he wants to be "exact" with his drawing, almost to the point of being "photo-realistic." He said he is fascinated with people — with their faces, their bodies and "why people look the way they look."
Edera Daubert’s approach to art is very realistic. The Lawrence High School junior is exhibiting a 3-D collage work, centered on a black leather jacket, baseball cards, sunglasses, guitar picks, a pizza take-out box and a sneaker with a water bottle tucked inside — all neatly arranged on a table underneath a collage of photographs of "punk" music bands.
The leather jacket, guitar picks and the pizza take-out box represent the punk culture of the 1970s, Edera said. Joey Ramone, the lead singer of The Ramones punk-rock band, loved pizza. The sneaker, which is dirty and broken down, is "iconic" — it is associated with The Ramones, she said.
The sneaker represents the culture of punk rock music, which most people would agree had its roots in New York City in the 1970s, Edera said. The water bottle is representative of the trash and litter that is strewn around New York City.
"Punk is an important thing to me. The culture resonates with me. It is aesthetically appealing to me. Punk music is minimalist," Edera said. Minimalism is "the most beautiful thing," because there is so little going on. It is not as complex as other art, she added.
Edera, who said her forte is digital cartooning, said she began drawing when she was a young child, and "I kept going from there." Sometimes, she will take a photograph of an object that she sees — perhaps at home — and scan it into a computer and manipulate it digitally.
To arrange for an appointment to view the art exhibit, contact the Abud Family Foundation for the Arts at 609-844-0448.
