For the next month, works by students from Correlieu Secondary School, the McNaughton Centre and Quesnel Junior School will grace the walls of the Quesnel Art Gallery.
“New Art,” a showcase of young, emerging artists, runs April 14-May 12.
The art show’s promotional poster features artwork by 17-year-old Jessica Oldring, who is in Grade 12 at Correlieu Secondary School (CSS). Interestingly enough, her artwork was also chosen for the poster for a student art show when she was in Grade 8.
Oldring grew up in Lillooet and moved to Quesnel when she was eight. Nature and the Cariboo landscape inspire much of her work.
Oldring will be showing six or seven works in “New Art,” including a large tropical landscape called “Thrive.”
“This one was a bit different for me; I usually don’t do tropical landscapes,” she said. “I didn’t really have any set image in my mind when I started. It’s kind of inspired by my auntie because she’s a botanist and has all kinds of plants in her house.”
Art is an important form of expression for Oldring.
“You can tell who a person is through their art,” she said. “The landscapes I draw, the plants and the terrain, it’s a sense of home for me.”
Seventeen-year-old Bethany Fry, who is in Grade 12 at CSS, has been drawing since she was two.
“I enjoy pencil drawings and sketches a lot,” she said. “I like how temporary it is because you can easily wipe something away. You can easily fix something. And they seem to have a bit more life to them.”
Recently, Fry has started creating larger paintings, and one of the pieces she will be showing in “New Art” is a large painting titled “Alice.”
“It’s my first really big piece that I’ve done,” she said, noting it took her about 14 weeks to complete. The painting depicts Alice, a character from one of her favourite video games, Oblivion, part of the Elder Scrolls series.
“The inspiration for [the painting] was I really wanted to draw and paint one of my own characters,” said Fry, adding that while inspired by Oblivion, some of the other art style came from another game
Fry is grateful for the opportunity to show her work as a young artist.
“It’s amazing,” she said. “I think it’s such a great thing to be able to show young emerging artists’ art, to give them more confidence and get them out in the community and more well-known.”
CSS Grade 12 student Trisha MacDonald has been doing art for, “honestly as long as I can remember.”
“When I was younger, I was really fascinated by cartoons and the art style,” she said. “I wanted to be an animator since I was really young.”
MacDonald, who is 17, says she is inspired by other artists.
“When I found out about digital artwork, that pushed me into wanting to do more, and when I got my first tablet in Grade 7, that was amazing,” she said, explaining she likes the way you can highlight little details and make them pop with shine details. “You can really make fantasy pieces pop, and I love that aspect of it.”
Fourteen-year-old Shelbi Carter, who is in Grade 9 at Quesnel Junior School (QJS), will be showing three pieces in “New Art,” and she says she is kind of nervous about it.
“My favourite is the painting of an eye because I took the time to shade,” she said.
Jenna Christieson, who is 14 and in Grade 9 at QJS, says she loves art because “you kind of just get to express yourself and do what you want to do. There’s not really a way you have to do it.”
Christieson will be showing a papier-mâché giraffe at the art gallery.
“I didn’t want to at first,” she said. “I was kind of nervous, but I think I’m good now. It’s good. It’s kind of fun knowing everyone can see your art.”
Fifteen-year-old Grace Currie, who is in Grade 9 at QJS, thinks she will be showing one piece in “New Art.”
“It’s this girl, and she’s stuck in this one place in the vines, and her dress is becoming the nature that’s around her,” she said.
Currie says her favourite medium would either be drawing or painting because she likes the way they look, as they can be very exact or abstract, and she loves art because you can start off with one idea and see where it leads you.
Quesnel students and the community will celebrate the opening for “New Art” Friday, April 13 from 7-9 p.m. at the Quesnel Art Gallery.
The show is sponsored by School District 28.
Joan Ramsey Harker, program director with the Quesnel Art Gallery, is looking forward to the show. She remembers the last time they did a high school show, they “threw out all the rules” about hanging art at the gallery because they had so many pieces, and they had art everywhere they could place it.
“I’d like to thank School District 28 for recognizing the value of the arts in our young people’s lives and sponsoring the show,” she said.
“We always enjoy the student show so much,” she said. “Their ideas are great. The art gallery loves working with the school system because they’re so organized and the teachers are so enthusiastic about their work.”
