Humanity has expressed itself through art since we have existed. At FHS, students are able to express themselves through art in many different ways, with one of those being the IB Art Showcase.
The IB Art showcase is an annual event where art pieces made by senior IB Art students from their junior and senior year are displayed and viewed within the library. Pieces are accompanied by brief summaries of what the piece expresses or shows.
Tania Chavez Guzman, one of the artists who had displayed their art in the showcase, sees the showcase as fun and an accomplishment. Chavez Guzman was excited to share her artwork and what it stands for– something she had been looking forward to since her junior year.
“It’s a way to chronologically tell my life and my story,” Chavez Guzman said.
While Chavez Guzman had nine pieces of artwork on display during the art show, two of the pieces stuck out to her, including her work “Ignorance is Bliss.” The piece is a self-portrait of Chavez Guzman as her present-day self and as a young child with crosshairs on them both. Chavez Guzman liked this piece since she felt that it was very eye-catching and that she conveyed what she wanted to within it.
“I’m proud of it because it was a very controversial piece and I communicated my feelings well,” Chavez Guzman said.
The second piece that was important to Chavez Guzman was one named “Art is in the Hands of the Beholder.” This is a self-portrait of Chavez Guzman painting the flowers around them, and was the final piece of the exhibition, which allowed her to end the journey through her work on a positive note. No matter what, all of her work was an expression of self and how she has changed through her artwork.
“It was more of how culturally my identity has changed, and how my own perspective changed my way of identity,” Chavez Guzman said.
Another artist whose work is included in the exhibition, Kinze Russell, enjoys the art show as it allows him and anyone else interested to show what they have been making for the past year and a half.
“I really liked that it celebrated not just mine, but all of my classmates’ artwork,” Russell said.
Russell’s work usually follows a common theme of emotion or grieving and learning how to cope. Russell has made many pieces about lost pets or other occurrences that had impacted him at that time.
“Making those pieces really helped me process and deal with that grief,” Russell said.
Russell has two pieces that stand out to him the most: “A little bit of this and a little bit of that” and “I love you, I’m sorry.” The first is a self-portrait, the second piece is a ceramic cat resembling one that Russell used to live with.
“I’ve found that I really like ceramics and that I’m good at it,” Russell said.
Overall, the IB art show is both a very fun and creative way to show one’s character and individuality to others, and share things that make us, us.
“Everything had something to do with me,” Chavez Guzman said.
