Ten Green Hope students were awarded the opportunity to present their art at the Artsplosure culture event. Artsplosure is an annual event where 170 visual art pieces are selected then juried. This year, only 160 pieces were chosen, 15 of them being Green Hope student artworks. Abigail Song (’28), Alex Atanasova (’26, two pieces), Alex Steele (’26, two pieces), An Nguyen (’28, two pieces), Angelina Lu (‘26, two pieces), Charis Choy (’26, two pieces), Eleanor Fewkes (’27), Izabella Marek (’27), Karuna Shanmugam (’26) and Lans Xu (’27) had pieces that were entered by Melissa Poppe, one of two art teachers in Green Hope.
Poppe takes student artwork that stands out to her and enters them into local competitions, this time ten students received the honor of showcasing their work at Artsplosure. Charis Choy (26’), a senior at Green Hope, has two of her pieces being presented at the Artsplosure cultural event. The two artworks, A Quiet Ritual and Becoming contain a personal reference for Choy, displaying themes of inevitable change and familial attachment. A Quiet Ritual, a still-life, is done in graphite, charcoal and the orange in chalk pastel.
Looking for objects to portray in her still-life project, Choy happened upon a few objects on her kitchen counter: supplements and oranges. “My parents are big believers in eating fruit and being healthy,” she shared. “As they get older, inevitably, oranges are not enough to keep you healthy and that’s why they had all these supplements and pills,” said Choy. A Quiet Ritual is meant to represent the inevitability of age and how simply eating healthy no longer holds the same value. Her other piece, Becoming, is entirely done in graphite, portraying her older brother.
After graduating last year, Choy’s older brother entered an ROTC program where he experienced an abrupt change. Facing a multitude of challenges, “he was pretty miserable for the first couple of months,” stated Choy. At his graduation ceremony her other brother took a picture of him in uniform with the rest of his class, displaying his family name on the back of his cap. The image later drew attention. “I thought it meant a lot about my brother and my family,” said Choy. Choy shared that she is excited that her pieces were entered. “I had no idea they were even entered一it was really cool though.”
Angelina Lu (‘26’), was another student artist entered into the Artsplosure event. The last time Lu was a part of the Artsplosure event was in middle school and she reflects on this as “a nice ending to my high school career. Lu has two pieces being presented at the Artsplosure event: Brace and Introspection. Brace is a piece done entirely in graphite, exploring personal narratives such as health and acceptance. The piece shows Lu giving herself a shot for her eczema, “My whole portfolio was centered around eczema, a skin-condition I have,” stated Lu. The graphite is meant to represent the horror of giving yourself a shot. Highlighting the shot, she chose to do it in colored pencil, as it is the center of the piece. Introspection was Lu’s first time doing a piece in color pencil, representing past insecurities about her eczema.
“I titled it Introspection because the whole piece is about analyzing yourself and your perspective of who you are and how you appear to others,” stated Lu. Lu suffered due to her eczema, although her skin is healed now, and while she no longer has those outlining scars, she still carries past insecurities. Introspection is meant to touch on those old habits and how something that has stayed with someone so long can be hard to break, “I am trying to work on that self-confidence aspect.”
Alex Steele (‘26’), another senior, also has two artworks he’ll be showcasing at Artsplosure. Steele’s artworks, Counting Sheep and Prescription, are two starkly different mediums. Counting Sheep is a graphite self-portrait of Steele lying in bed, representing his insomnia. The sheep are done in charcoal with numbers “that were numbered in seconds within six hours, as it would be if I tried to fall asleep at midnight and stayed awake until my alarm went off.” Prescription is a linoleum reduction print with nine reductions. The print shows a pill bottle with a brain inside.
“The medium impacted how I designed the piece because the layers had to be able to fit inside each.” Linoleum reduction printing is creating a multi-layered and colored print carved out of one block of lino. For this piece, Steele had strategically carved out each layer, one mis-layer could’ve potentially ruined the process. This isn’t the first time Steele has had his art entered in competitions, however.“I was excited, I have experienced it before and last year they hung my piece upside down,” it was also the first time he had a piece entered into a competition and hopes this event goes better.
Karuna Shanmugam (26’), is a senior at Green Hope who felt honored that her piece was entered into a competition. Shanmugam discussed how this experience was different from other competitions, due to the fact that she wasn’t the one entering the piece. “It was kind of an honor to have someone else like my piece enough to submit it for a competition,” stated Shanmugam. Her piece entered was a mixed media work titled My First Birthday, and it was curated last semester.
My First Birthday was centered around the idea of nostalgia. “When I was looking through our photo album I knew events like my first birthday happened,” she recalled. “I had these experiences with people but I couldn’t quite remember them.” Her artwork is meant to represent the absence of details in a memory and trying to reflect that through her art.
Abigail Song, Alex Atanasova (two pieces), An Nguyen (two pieces), Eleanor Fewkes, Izabella Marek and Lans Xu, were the other six students who will be presenting their artwork at Artsplosure on May 16th-17th from 11am to 5pm at PNC Plaza Lobby in Raleigh. All people are welcome to join the event and view the student work and enjoy the festival.
