Students Embark on Rigorous AP Art Concentrations
Senior Erin Jung works on her AP Studio Art concentration.
September 21, 2015
During a productive summer, students from AP Studio Art each created three outstanding pieces as part of their concentration. These three pieces are only the beginning of a 12-piece concentration. This concentration project will be completed by the end of the school year and submitted as a portfolio to receive AP credit. Each of these talented artists focused on a thematic topic that challenged their artist skills and expressed their creativity. AP Studio Art Teacher Greg Cice designed this summer project so that the students “could have a chance to explore … and experiment with different mediums” while keeping “their skills tuned and refined.”
In his concentration, Senior Levi DeMatteo will explore the role of humanity in the destruction of the planet. He highlights how human advancements in various fields disrupts natural order, and questions the idea that humans are divine beings not subject to nature’s laws. Levi’s concentration originates from his concerns about the environment. “In 2015 after we’ve passed the tipping point and initiated the first signs of mass extinction, I became a lot more interested in more retrospective questions. Why did we get to this point? Could we have stopped this?” said Levi. To Levi, art “is a vessel that expresses ideas and emotions more proficiently than words.”He plans to use the book of Genesis to answer such questions and convey his message.
Levi’s passion and dedication to art made it easy for him to complete his three pieces during the summer. Levi said that “it’s easy to work it into your schedule if you care. It’s not that hard to put in an hour of drawing a day.” Levi’s biggest challenge is planning out his pieces. “Given the collage-like nature of my drawings, I don’t always know what they’ll look like at the end because they’re really a bunch of tiny drawings that make up a larger one. So planning ahead and thinking about what I want my art to look like is a challenge for me that few other kids have to deal with because most other AP art concentrations are drawn from gridded photographs,” said Levi.
In contrast to Levi’s deep analytical concentration, senior Ally Petitti planned her concentration with a more personal focus. At the beginning of summer, Ally couldn’t decide on a specific topic. She wanted to find a topic that allowed her the opportunity to draw freely and not be tied down by the assignment. Ally eventually decided to focus on drawing close friends and specific memories. “My goal is to portray my senior year through my friends and the moments that I enjoy the most, and even the ones that are stressful and tough,” said Ally.
Ally’s biggest challenge is balancing her ideas for her pieces with the time limits she has to create them. “I want to illustrate multiple people, but the limited amounts of time for each piece make it hard to have more than one person in each piece,” she said. For Ally, art is a relaxing form of expression that she wants to continue after Hackley. “I hope that art will always be a part of my life, because it has always been a great way for me to express myself and relax. I don’t see myself studying art in school, but I hope to always continue to draw and keep going with it,” said Ally.
Senior Jason Traum, who is also drawing his friends, uses oil pastels to paint a series of pixelated portraits. For his concentration, Jason will focus on how light hits the face while expressing the subject’s features through color, value, and temperature. “I sketch the person’s face, grid the paper, and paint each individual ‘pixel’ as its own canvas, and then integrate the pixels together to make the finished piece,” said Jason. Jason documents the steps and pro- cess of his artwork @yosoyjason on Instagram.
Jason was motivated by the artworks of students in previous AP Studio Art Classes. “When I came to Hackley in 9th Grade, I remember looking at the works by upper classmen hanging on the walls, thinking that I could never do anything that was close to being as good as what was hanging there, but for the last three years Mr. Green and Mr. Cice have motivated me to continue in the art program, and now I’m taking AP Studio Art.” he said.