Current senior and AP art student Annabelle Gray has always had a passion for art. Surrounded by creative talent from a young age (her older sister majored in art at Hackley as well), she first decided to embark on her Hackley art career in middle school.

Since then, Annabelle has been thriving in Hackley’s Art program. She first began to shape her skills in 7th and 8th grade, when she decided to take it as a major. In 9th grade, Annabelle took Foundations of Studio Art, then proceeded to take Intermediate Art in 10th grade. In Junior year, she declared her art major. Currently, she is showcasing her talents at the AP art level in her last year at Hackley.

Annabelle described her love for art as “influential to the person she has become.” For her, art is not only something she loves to do but also has been a means to release stress over the rigorous Hackley curriculum, finding it both “relaxing and freeing”, she said.

Over her time in the Hackley art program, Annabelle has been able to experiment with many different mediums. Annabelle’s favorite mediums to work with are graphite and charcoal. When using these materials, Annabelle felt like she “had the most freedom and control”.

For Annabelle’s AP art portfolio (a collection of artwork an artist makes to share their ability) this year, she decided to use charcoal and graphite as a medium to dive into her reflection pieces by focusing on the idea of mirrors. She came up with this idea when she saw an image of fractured glass and was intrigued by it. She then bought a mirror to break in class and based her artwork on the now-fractured mirror. She shared how “all the little cracks and stuff were really interesting.” From there, she worked with the mirror idea to form art pieces like the one she’s currently working on, a reflection through a compact mirror.

In her pieces, the protagonist is always making eye contact with themselves through the given reflection, and thus not directly looking at the camera. Annabelle described this perspective as “really interesting to look at” from both an artistic and an audience standpoint.

Art has been a very influential factor in Annabelle’s life here at Hackley, and her work has inspired others to pursue the art path as well.

Annabelle Gray will hopefully pursue her art career by pursuing it in college and continue to not only please herself but inspire others.