If you have ever wondered about how well our city’s four high schools foster their students’ creative output then the answer is right there on the walls of the Art Gallery of St. Albert.
Paul Kane, Bellerose, St. Albert Catholic and Ă©cole Secondaire Ste. Marguerite d’Youville (ESSMY) high schools collaborate every May on a massive display of artistic verve and vitality called High Energy, now in its 16th edition at the public art gallery.
To get an idea how massive it is, just ask Janine Karasick-Acosta, the gallery’s curator and visual communications co-ordinator. She said it takes lots of energy just to place and hang High Energy.
“There’s about 150 pieces of art,” she said with a small measure of exhaustion. A typical show normally features 20 to 30 pieces.
She elaborated that the number held a special significance as a special tie-in for the city’s sesquicentennial. Each school submitted 30 works for the show itself with another 30 pieces up for sale. They were part of a special printmaking project to raise funds for the Youth Emergency Shelter Society in Edmonton.
The show really is about exuberance, enthusiasm and sheer passion for art. What the artists themselves might lack in experience and professionalism, they more than make up for with fearlessness and fun. There are a lot of bright primary colours to catch the eye. Many pieces show characters or objects in motion, excellent case examples of starting with the right subject to engage the viewer’s interest.
Like Thomas Fenton’s The Monster, which resembles a medieval knight in a suit of aluminum armour out of Monster energy drink cans, an apropos medium for a show such as this.
The Grade 10 ESSMY student took about two months to work on this unique craft project that has facets in both visual art and engineering. Finding the right balance — both literally and figuratively — was no small feat.
“It started off quite small but I didn’t like how it looked to be proportionate, so I just kept adding on to it until it became so huge,” he remarked on the two-foot-tall creature with a lot of sharp edges. “It was definitely hard to make.”
His art instructor, Pam Wilman, is impressed with his dedication.
“He’s incredible … an inventor. He’s just a natural at building 3D forms.”
She is pleased he and her other students get to have this venue every year to show off their talents. Fenton and other members of his class worked on an installation project along the theme of improvisation. Each school was given an exact kit of materials and it was left up to them to build whatever they wanted. ESSMY came up with a chess-inspired horse figure made of small plastic chess pieces, while other entries included a large fish on a hook and a skeletal hand of Styrofoam cups wrapped around a rock. All highly energetic works indeed.
High Energy XVI: Improvise
Featuring work from students at all four city high schools
Opening reception tomorrow evening during ArtWalk from 6 to 9 p.m.
Many of the exhibiting artists will be in attendance.
Show runs until May 28 at the Art Gallery of St. Albert, 19 Perron St.
