Around 80 Grade 11 and 12 North Park Collegiate students had their work on display for the school’s 26th annual senior art showcase, titled “Lost in Time” on Tuesday, June 11, 2024.
Kelsey Phillips, one of two senior art teachers at North Park, said that the show was a culmination of the students’ creative endeavors.
“They get to celebrate the process that they’ve moved through as a student, the maturity of their work, and to just be proud of what they’ve done,” she said. “It’s a nice opportunity for the students to showcase their work in a more professional sort of setting and it shows them that their achievements are valid. It’s also a chance for friends and family to come and celebrate the important people in their life so it’s a special moment for everyone.”
With more than 300 pieces displayed around the school’s library, the students, families and friends walked around admiring the various mediums that the students have been working with throughout their high school career.
“We have a lot of mixed media works, acrylic paint pieces, drawings, prints, earthenware and plaster sculptures, photography, copper tooling, charcoal, pencil, and even graphite works,” said Phillips. “It’s everything they’ve learned throughout their four or five years of art classes and it’s all here.”
Phillips noted that the students have been working through the year, often putting in long hours to not only create the work, but to prepare for the art show as well.
“They did all the prep from creating titles to matting and making them look professional, fine finishing and painting edges of canvases, they did it all,” she said. “They’re as involved as they would like to be and we have some very dedicated art students that were here until 6:00 p.m. making sure everything was perfect.”
Sarah Tonkin, Department Head of the arts, added that as a teacher, seeing her students grow through their art was incredibly rewarding.
“To see them gain confidence, share their work, be proud of what they’ve done and really find their voice, that’s just one of the most rewarding parts as a teacher,” she said with a smile. “Some students have used their artwork to really say some important things about their viewpoint on the world and are using their artwork to make a statement on the world that they’re living in. I think that’s a powerful way to reach people.”
For Grade 12 student Ace Loker, the show was an opportunity to do just that.
“I wanted to draw a mushroom person but I didn’t know where to go with it until it came to me. I am a transgender individual so I decided to make it a transgender mushroom person, and I’ve showcased that with the scars that I decided to add in,” he said. “If you take a peek at the roses on it, they are the colours of the transgender flag, and I added that to my plaster hand sculpture as well. The hand really represents who I was; I was born female and I now identify as a man so the pink represents femininity and the rose represents myself, the new me, growing from within. The blood and the thorns that are tucked into it are showcasing how I’m still attached to who I was. I’m not a different person, but I am at the same time and I think it shows both the beauty and the darkness of who I am now and who I was then.”
Loker said that during his time at the school, he’s learned to appreciate that there is more to art than just painting or drawing.
“I tell people all the time, art is many different things and it’s in the eye of the beholder. Photography is art, fashion is art, writing and theatre are both an art,” he said. “Some people don’t fully understand that when you talk about art, it’s not just about painting or drawing on paper, it’s such a broad thing and it means different things to different people. Some people see art as this serious thing that has to have concrete meanings and other people prefer to let art be abstract; It really just depends on you and how you want to enjoy it.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
