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Walking into Fulton-Montgomery Community College’s Perrella Gallery, it’d be easy to mistake the works on view for college-level work.
However, each piece in the wide-ranging show was created by local high school students.
The juried “Regional High School Art Exhibition” is part of a longstanding tradition at the gallery, bringing in works by high school students from districts within 50 miles of the campus.
This year, it was juried by local artist and tattooist Mike Hopkins. It’s a highly selective show, with only 44 works out of 313 submissions selected.
“This year’s juror was very selective and his interpretation was he was really focused on showing exceptional work and pushing that,” said Anthony Dimezza, the gallery director and an art teacher at Broadalbin-Perth High School.
The show includes work from students at Amsterdam High School, Bethlehem Central High School, Broadalbin-Perth, Gloversville, Mohonasen, Niskayuna, Scotia-Glenville, Shaker and others.
It also includes a drawing by Mayfield sophomore Maya Rohling, who depicted a hand dialing a rotary phone. The piece came out of a project in Rik Kent’s studio art class, where students had to pick a photograph to draw.
“I liked the composition of it,” Rohling said. “I searched through a lot of photos on Pinterest before finding it.”
“I like to do art and take a lot of art classes in school,” Rohling said. “I’d tell others to just do it. School is difficult and art is a fun break between other classes.”
Work by four Broadalbin-Perth students was also selected for the show, including two freshmen.
“They’ve not gone through a curriculum to achieve mastery yet [and] they’ve already succeeded in this,” Dimezza said.
Emma Schiller is one such young student who, inspired by a topography project, created a pen and ink piece with a puppet on stage and a narrative around the border.
“It looks kind of like a movie poster, but very illustrative. It’s wild,” Dimezza said.
Also on view is a sculptural piece by Rilee Christman, a Broadalbin-Perth student who made a replica of a Converse sneaker, with moss and mushrooms growing out of it.
Seeing their work on view in a professional gallery space can have a big impact on young students, inspiring them to hone their skills.
“It honestly is a true testament to the achievement of mastery and the responsibility of an individual to really push themselves into a higher category,” Dimezza said. “I think in this particular timeframe, too, it’s a really nice example of pulling away from the all-encompassing digital world and really having a young person being very active in the physical making of an object, either a sculpture or a photo or drawing. It’s a really good understanding for them to engage in the fact that this isn’t a social media thing. This is a real-life tactile space.”
Works by five students were given juror’s choice awards including wearable sculptures titled “Introverted Naturalist” by Anna Rightmyer of Cobleskill, a fiber sculpture called “Spicy Ramen Bowl” by Nina Knezevic of Niskayuna, a painting titled “Spam to Sustenance” by Lucy (Cheyeon) Lee of Shaker, an ink on paper piece called “A Morning of Memories” Solomiia Valihundi of Shaker and an untitled oil by Ansen Chamberlain of Bethlehem.
The Regional High School Art Exhibition opens on Monday and runs through April 20. There will be a reception on the last day from 6-7:30 p.m.
