Student artists shine in contest
December 13, 2017
Art for art’s sake is the purest form of creativity, but a little competition never hurt anyone. At the first Visual Arts Week at Diamond Bar High School, sophomore Kelsey Liang and senior Melissa Khodr were selected as the winners.
The competition, which was held during the week of Nov. 13, was divided into art and photography and received 32 submissions in total. Participants entered with their interpretations of the “imagination is the beginning of creation” prompt.
All submissions were displayed in the upper quad where students had the opportunity to view and vote on their favorite pieces during lunch. Winners of each category were given prizes in correlation to their interests.
In addition, art teacher Coleen Gee also chose seniors Megan Lee and Gabriel Zamora and junior Aaron Ung as winners who best responded to the theme given.
Out of 25 artwork submissions, Liang won first for her painting of an underwater galaxy.
“I didn’t give a title to this piece, because I felt that it could not be described with only one phrase,” she said. “This piece was inspired by the word ‘creation,’ which I linked to the beginning of the universe. From there, I blended in an underwater scene to make it more abstract.”
Liang, who heard about the competition from her AP Studio Art class, initially planned to compete with a digital art submission. She ultimately decided to participate with a painting instead.
“I wanted to try painting because it’s my weakness… I wanted to improve at painting,” Liang said.
Despite preferring pencil, pen, copic marker and digital art pieces over painting, she won the fan favorite award and was awarded a sketchbook and a pack of ink pens as a prize.
Khodr was the winner for the photography division, which had seven participants.
She entered the competition with a photo she took of her friend, senior Angela Kieta.
The photo features Kieta in a bathtub filled with water and sunflowers. Khodr won camera lenses and a light for taking pictures on her phone.