The High School Juried Art Show is back for another year at the Mann Art Gallery.
The 11th Annual show showcases the art of high school students from across the city and will return to having a live reception on Thursday, April 28.
Mann Art Gallery educator Lana Wilson curated this year’s show. She said it’s always exciting to see what City’s high school students produce, and difficult to decide which pieces make the final cut.
“We really do want to spotlight the outstanding work that our high school artists in the community do, and we wanted to be able to create a narrative with the work that comes in,” she explained.
This year’s show will be a little bit different compared to past years. Most of that is due to restricted space, but changes to the education system also play a factor.
With high schools moving to the block system, Wilson explained, some students have not had art classes since early in the school year.
“It’s not like the high school teachers just can necessarily pick up some art that they are currently doing and bringing it in,” she said.
The show is smaller this year. Students submitted the work online before Wilson had a chance to jury it.
“Unlike the Winter Festival Art Show and Sale, we do have to jury this show due to space requirements,” Wilson said.
Wilson and digital media coordinator Tia Furstenberg were finishing the show setup on Thursday in the Education Studio. Wilson said they were looking for what spaces worked and how they fit the feel she was looking for.
“I had some placeholders and now those works have come in,” she explained. “It’s really exciting seeing the work that I only saw and juried online. Being able to see it in the flesh (is why) I wanted to wait until all of the works got here before I select.”
The works are put into temporary frames and they try to make it as professional of a show as they can.
“We want to help the students feel like they are represented and like they belong in an art gallery,” Wilson said.
The live reception was originally scheduled for April 14, but was moved to April 28 due to logistics, according to Wilson. She added that the Mann Art Gallery is a community space, so people can join the show and feel comfortable.
Wilson said 77 works were submitted, and 51 will be part of the show.
“Not every high school ended up submitting work. This year we have work from Ecole St. Mary High School, we have work from PACI, we have work from Carlton and then we have work from the Flex Ed program which is an off-site online school, so that was exciting, I didn’t know about that program before,” she said.
The reception will be on Thursday, April 28 at 7 p.m. at the Mann Art Gallery,
“Everyone is invited to come and celebrate the high school artists,” Wilson said. “We’re really looking forward to it, I think it’s important for the students to be able to have a chance to see their work celebrated like this.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
