This year’s Suffolk County Art Leaders Association show at the Islip Art Council satellite gallery at the Westfield Mall in Bay Shore has a Huntington High School flavor, with pieces by seniors Fiorella Benitez-Arevalo and Lauren Landolfi on exhibit alongside art teacher Kasmira Mohanty’s own stunning work.
A reception was held last Saturday afternoon at the mall, which is located at 1701 Sunrise Highway.
SCALA has strived to highlight the creative process with this year’s show. “An artist’s process demonstrates important aspects of what art educators do and teach, such as research, reference/inspiration, practice, trial and error, experimentation, persistence, revision, refinement and so much more,” according to the organization.
Teachers were asked to consider submitting photos highlighting the artistic process of both their students and themselves for consideration for inclusion in this year’s show. Ms. Mohanty did just that and SCALA officials chose all three pieces to appear in the exhibit.
“The piece that was selected to be shown is titled ‘Starling,’ with it being the last of eight finished artworks I did last year for the Advanced Placement 2D course,” Ms. Benitez-Arevalo said. “This piece is my personal favorite of those eight for plenty of reasons, but overall the artwork stands as the physical embodiment of my artistic development throughout the timeline of my sustained investigation, aka the format of the AP and also as a digital artist. I feel the most connected to this piece primarily because of how I feel it perfectly encapsulates what I want to present in my art. I’ve always loved more dark, mysterious themes in art and I was happy to project that into ‘Nocuous Bird.’”
SCALA told high school art teachers that the benefits of exhibiting their work with their student’s pieces are multifold. “This is an excellent opportunity to make parents and community members more aware of the excellent work that’s always being created,” the organization said. “It provides further evidence that a meaningful and engaging art education program is being delivered in your district. It highlights the link between student achievement and the inspiration/instruction art teachers model.”
Ms. Mohanty’s own work, titled “Unicorns and Rainbows” demonstrates just how talented the veteran Huntington graphic arts teacher really is.
Ms. Benitez-Arevalo and Ms. Landolfi are proud of their work on display.
“I’m still blown away by myself at how I painted the bird specifically, by the way the bird is a European Starling, since even now I'm very proud of the line work of the wings and the gradient of the bird’s feathers,” Ms. Benitez-Arevalo said. “All in all, I truly do love this piece and hope to create more just like it in the future.”
Ms. Landolfi is thrilled to have her work on display in the show. “My artwork titled ‘Sophie’ is a reflection of surrealism and nature through the style of Studio Ghibli’s films,” the teenager said. “The artwork is a part of a series I’m creating for my AP 2D art class. I created it as a digital art piece over a series of weeks and drew inspiration from the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Junji Ito.”
Admission to the show is free.
