{"id":30556,"date":"2022-01-06T12:27:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T17:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30556"},"modified":"2022-01-06T12:29:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T17:29:00","slug":"celebration-of-youth-arts-to-showcase-grads-views-of-world-and-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/celebration-of-youth-arts-to-showcase-grads-views-of-world-and-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebration of Youth Arts to showcase grads\u2019 views of world \u2013 and themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kathy Qu, like so many of us, saw her world shrink at the outset of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A student at Aurora High School, she took her work home with her, including her beloved art supplies, and once she was firmly in place at home, she continued to find her creative outlet \u2013 even if her world was largely confined to the four corners of her bedroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything was composed in my room while everything was going on outside,\u201d says Kathy of her art installation \u201cMy Life in a Box.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Life in a Box is just one of more than 60 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and examples of digital art produced by Grade 12 students in local high schools which will form the basis of the annual Mayor\u2019s Celebration of Youth Arts, hosted between February 9 and March 21 by the Aurora Cultural Centre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slated to roll out to the community virtually through the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s website and, it is hoped, by appointment at the Centre\u2019s temporary gallery space at Town Hall, it\u2019s a yearly event that produces evocative pieces that never fail to spark community discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are super-excited about this exhibition,\u201d says Christina DiPaola, Gallery Assistant for the Aurora Cultural Centre. \u201cTeachers have been paramount in helping us do the Celebration this year because it is just not possible to do any kind of in-school visits. They have been great\u2026because they see the young adults in class and we\u2019re really not able to do the program without the support of the schools. Their support hasn\u2019t wavered and it is still as great as ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike last year, we will be doing an online portion where the entire show will be on our website and we will be doing a 360 Virtual Tour, high-res photos, and it is to be determined how the in-person viewing of the exhibition will be, but fingers crossed we will be able to have in-person viewings by appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For participating art graduates, the Mayor\u2019s Celebration of Youth Arts is a welcome and much-needed creative outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt creates a pathway for others to get to know you through your art piece and it is a really great opportunity,\u201d says Kathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fellow artist Christarn Thorg of St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School is also taking a personal approach to what she hopes to exhibit at the Celebration. It\u2019s a self-portrait of her face surrounded by foliage and flowers \u2013 but she is depicted crying tears of blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt represents a dark period in my life where nobody knew what was going on,\u201d she says. \u201cThe flowers resemble how I presented myself to everyone. They only saw what I presented, but they didn\u2019t see what was going on. I think this is something viewers will be able to relate to. When they initially look at it, I want them to feel uncomfortable and confused. It is confusing looking at flowers and seeing a crying face, especially if it is blood and not actual tears, but I want them to walk away reflecting on themselves, how they feel, and how they present themselves to others \u2013 and really question that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora High School\u2019s Lauren Maron is also putting herself in her work. A lover of dance, she has created a six-foot-tall charcoal piece inspired by the graceful movements perfected by performers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDancers rely on their bodies to be able to do what they do, so I wanted to showcase someone who looks like me,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s from the back, she has muscles, and I thought the black and white really captured the beauty of the body and what it can do for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also taking inspiration from the world of dance is Aurora High School\u2019s Natalie Opdebeeck who, although she hasn\u2019t quite decided what to submit for the show, is leaning towards four drawings of dancer Judith Jamison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was so inspired by her,\u201d says Natalie. \u201cI am really excited to be a part of this because my sister [participated in the Mayor\u2019s Celebration of Youth Arts] a few years ago and I am excited to have the same opportunity. To have this opportunity is really awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This enthusiasm is shared by fellow student Megan Brown who has taken a still-life approach to the show, creating a realistic pencil-crayon drawing of several varieties of fruit and, moving towards the margin of the piece, the realistic fruit shifts into pixels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am excited to not only have my art shown in a gallery but to see other people\u2019s art and what they created,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is all the same Grade 12 course, but there is so much freedom in what you can do and I think it will be really cool to see the art of others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. DiPaola and the Cultural Centre team are also looking forward to seeing the works of the students. Each year, very prominent themes emerge on the gallery walls, from the environment to mental health, all of which provides plenty of food for thought for viewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my class, I have noticed a pattern that almost every piece is related to their mental health,\u201d says Christarn. \u201cI think especially during the pandemic, we have been thinking about ourselves and what we have been able to put into our art. We want to share with everyone how we\u2019re feeling through our art and I hope they get that message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd even your grandma across the ocean can see it!\u201d adds Ms. DiPaola of one of the silver linings of hosting a show during the pandemic: the ability to go virtual. \u201cI know Cardinal Carter students have some digital pieces they will be doing, so we can actually show them as they are supposed to be presented. We wouldn\u2019t be able to do that in the gallery so much. There are some benefits to having this hybrid model where some of the digital photography can really be presented as best as possible digitally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathy Qu, like so many of us, saw her world shrink at the outset of COVID-19. A student at Aurora High School, she took her work home with her, including her beloved art supplies, and once she was firmly in place at home, she continued to find her creative outlet \u2013 even if her world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-01-06-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7WQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 12:06:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}