Huntington Duo Wins Suffolk Art Leaders Awards
Sal Franco and Marie Coneys each put a lot of thought, hard work and effort into the art they produce so the Huntington High School seniors couldn't be happier that others are increasingly starting to notice their exceptional creativity.
The two teenagers earned awards at this year's Suffolk County Art Leaders Assn. All County & Mary Reay Scholarship Show at the Brookhaven Amphitheatre & Cultural Arts Center at Bald Hill in Farmingville.
Mr. Franco won the SCALA's annual $500 scholarship and Ms. Coneys captured a first place award in digital photography, which was accompanied by a $50 stipend. Mr. Franco titled his work, "Dinner Time, Mr. Johnsonsaurus, Hernk Queely." Ms. Coneys' was called "Deconstructed Human Deluge."
"I really enjoy hand rendering characters and then importing them into Photoshop to be refined and colored," said Mr. Franco, a member of Huntington's Class of 2012. "I have been exploring my passion for art as early as I can remember. At the age of six, the one thing I was adept at drawing were shapes. I spent hours creating images that included invented shapes, which was my interpretation of the sounds, sights, tastes and smells around me. To a trained artist, I am sure my attempts at visual expression seemed abstract in nature at best. This to me demonstrated the ambiguous properties of art and how interpretation can change what my art is to other people."
"It has been my pleasure to be Salvatore Franco's Computer Graphics, Advanced Computer Graphics and AP 2-D Design Portfolio teacher," said Kasmira Mohanty, a Huntington High School art department faculty member. "Sal stands out as a thoughtful, competent, innovative and professional student. I have been continually impressed with his ability to produce well composed and truly original work."
Multifaceted and Inspiring Art
Ms. Mohanty said the teenager works well independently and has created multifaceted and inspiring pieces. "I especially adore his work that centers on the creation of original and wonderfully odd characters," she said. "The characters are hand rendered and creatively completed on the computer, incorporating complex shading and painting techniques."
Mr. Franco is a member of Huntington's national art honor society chapter. The organization selected his work to be enlarged on a 40x50 inch canvas and displayed in a high school hallway as part of the AHS's school beautification project.
"A big interest of mine, for a large part of my early life, was dinosaurs," Mr. Franco said. "I loved them in every medium; in cartoons, in books, in movies and in documentaries. This interest was supplemented by my parents, with an encyclopedia of various prehistoric creatures. Perhaps others would not enjoy flipping through educational books, but to me it served as imagination fuel.
Habit of Observing
The teenager said his "habit of observing things" of interest "has aided in developing my analytical and eventually cynical attitude towards many aspects of life. I never was truly able to attach myself to a social group because of how I approach their ideals. The way I began to cope with this sort of mental isolation was through satire. I find a great deal of enjoyment in making fun of the social orders people assign themselves to. Art became an extension of that. Art was my form of visual satire, but I try to handle it in such a way that it is equal parts homage and insult, with a touch of humor."
Ms. Mohanty believes her skilled student is destined for success. "It has been rare in my career to come across such a student," she said. "I have immensely enjoyed my time with him and will be saddened to see him leave."
All of Mr. Franco's ideas have come together nicely in his latest pieces of art. "I find myself juggling the prehistoric/modern social setting with characters that are monstrous caricatures of social stereotypes as well as non-sentient creatures that inhabit my own plane of prehistory," he said. "These characters seem to reflect, at least to myself, a desire to learn more about other walks of life whether or not I agree with their lifestyle. This yearning to know more has inspired me to delve deeper into exploring my artistic talents and to test the limits of what I can create."