The Urban Winter Art Show, held on Feb. 11, featured the work of 21 seniors, including media such as sculpture, painting, drawing, jewelry making and filmmaking. The show is an annual tradition, allowing only seniors to display and present their work to the rest of the Urban community. The art show consisted of browsing time around the school to look at art and to talk to the artists, enjoy refreshments and listen to a presentation with all the artists explaining their thinking and processes behind their art.

Senior artists are enrolled in the Advanced Visual Art Seminar. The class consists of an independent project. The purpose of the class is to create a body of work and a specific art process for their lives outside of Urban.

Kate Randall, one of Urban’s art teachers and art department head, says that the seniors who participated are “a tightly knit group, (and give) a lot of mutual support.” One of the benefits of being in the class are the many peer critiques, which help all of the students determine what they could be improving in their work.

Randall also said that there was “no particular theme,” but the show is “all seniors who have taken a number of art classes” during their time at Urban. The students each pick their own subject matter, and it varies widely. The different subjects included brains, comic books, hands, and beehives.

Evan Tomlinson Weintraub (’10) constructed a sculpture of himself, as he says in his artist statement, “frozen in outer space or floating in the deepest part of the ocean.” This sculpture was made out of papier mache and formed to his body. He hung the piece in the alcove next to the Independence Room. The figure is suspended by string, and small bells hang around it.

Unlike the other artists, Martin Lindsey (’10) used the computer to create his work, including vectors, which are shapes in reference to one another, to create faces and shapes. He decided to create images of his friends, which produced colorful portraits with intriguing backgrounds. He said in his artist statement, “I want to characterize these people because they intrigue and fascinate me.”

Another distinct medium that was explored in the show was jewelry making. Dmitri Staszewski (’10) chose to produce jewelry because he enjoys making pieces during the summer and the art show was an excuse to go to his father’s jewelry studio to do what he enjoys. Through the class, he spent more time with his father, who was in the jewelry-making business, and he also gained experience constructing jewelry. As he wrote in his artist statement, “all of the pieces come from the structural beauty found in nature.”

The art show is not only an event that incorporates the visual art classes. There were multiple seniors who were influenced by Urban classes. Becca Atkinson (’10) cited her neurobiology course as an inspiration for her brain-related pieces. Caroline Yopes (’10) and Renee Donovan (’10) also both attributed inspiration to LeRoy Votto’s colonial history class.

The Art Show not only helps Urban artists connect their art to what they study, but also to create lasting memories of their work. Yopes wrote about this in her artist statement about her jars of honey in which she has preserved her memories.

“I have used this winter art show as a way of showing my own documentation, whether that be from taking pictures, drawing, or collecting objects,” Yopes said. “Each allows me to return to these memories whenever I wish.”