By Raushan Melton
Staff Writer
New artistic points of view flourished in the student-organized Mira Costa Art Gallery in room 60 titled “What Makes Us Human?” where students displayed personal and poignant pieces that skillfully showed the definition of what it means to exist.
Advanced Placement Studio Art and College Preparatory Art students showed off their interpretations of the human form and emotion while creatively incorporating unique style and flair in each piece.
The creator of the gallery, junior Ali Wu, said she wanted to create an exhibition that could be interpreted by viewers in a number of ways. Wu selected pieces by asking classmates to donate artwork for the show.
The layout of the gallery was sparse, with empty spaces, creating a haunting atmosphere. For example, one simple canvas the size of a school chalkboard by senior Haley Wetmore sat lonesomely in the corner of the gallery distanced from a pyramidal canvas by senior Brenda Quintero, successfully building a contrast between human emotions in the room.
The showstopper, created on the back of a portable chalkboard by Wetmore, was a subtle figure of a naked woman that had an eerie and delicate aesthetic. Additionally, the piece had little color, creating a melancholic feel and adding a new emotional dimension to the gallery.
Furthermore, a three-dimensional triangular canvas sat in the middle of the room and elicited a strong, emotional response. The piece, created by Quintero, contained strong colors and etchings of words about the human life cycle throughout. It expressed a theme of human rag and a strong message about human emotional angst, making the gallery come alive.
Hung quietly and spaced along the far wall in the gallery were artistic sketches by Wu’s brother, Michael Wu. The pieces contained varying charcoal lines that depicted portrait views of different people in chairs. These exemplary sketches conveyed a message of how variable the physical human form is, creating a successful contrast between the physical and emotional aspects of humanity in the gallery.
“What Makes Us Human?” displayed how each artist perceives the human body, allowing for entirely new interpetations of what it means to be a human, and a thought- provoking contrast between the link of our emotions and physical form.
“What Makes Us Human?” was on display in the Costa Art Gallery in Room 60 from April 12 – 22.
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