THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 3, 1995 TAG: 9504030037
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Ashley Kiriluk sat on a bench in The Chrysler Museum on Sunday, perplexed by a prize.
``I made it one day after school, just for fun,'' said Kiriluk, who had won first place in Student Gallery '95, a regional high school art competition.
Art by 61 finalists went on view Sunday at the Norfolk museum, and two black-and-white photographs by the Catholic High School senior earned the $600 top prize.
Fellow high school artists, who attended the afternoon ceremony with several hundred friends, art teachers and family members, applauded as she collected $600 and a plaque.
Kiriluk was excited, but flummoxed.
``I thought they'd choose a painting for first place. Painting takes so much more work,'' she said. ``This only took me a minute.''
Kiriluk's story about how she made the photo of a girl's torso with an exposed, pierced navel isn't quite that brief. She photographed a friend one November afternoon in her front yard in the Brandon section of Virginia Beach.
Later, for a school project, Kiriluk made four prints of that image in a gradation of sizes. She glued and stacked the prints, resulting in a textural pattern with a belly button at its center.
She also exhibited a dark, moody portrait of a man. She used an old 35mm Pentax camera she bought at a Virginia Beach pawn shop in September.
``I never even took pictures until this year,'' Kiriluk said. ``This is just a regular picture to me. I don't know what made it great.''
Kiriluk, 17, is better known at Catholic High as a player on the varsity girls' teams for basketball and soccer. She never hung out with artist types before. She wants to be an accountant.
``I'm good at math,'' she said.
Juror Bret Waller, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, had plenty to say about Kiriluk's belly button photo. ``I like the fact that it isn't obvious,'' he began.
Waller's first encounter with the exhibit was through slides of each work mailed to him two weeks ago. ``When I looked at her photograph in the slide, I couldn't tell what it was. But I liked the image. It gave the sense of a strange canopy with fringe hanging down, or of a wisteria plant.
``It wasn't until I got here and saw it that I realized it was generated from this very straightforward photograph of a midriff. I laughed when I saw that.''
Waller found the placement of the navel at the center very humorous. The center, he said, ``is a really potent point. And the whole image grows out from that.''
Before winners were announced, guests milled at a reception.
For Darlene Thornton, art teacher at Great Bridge High School in Chesapeake, this was her 20th encounter with Student Gallery. She first attended in 1975 with her brother, Julian Greenough, who was a finalist. In 1976, he won the top prize for his painting of a motorcycle.
``I have that painting in my garage right now.''
The canvas was lost until four years ago, when it was discovered in the auditorium at Indian River High School, where Thornton taught art until this year. Nowadays, Greenough makes his living airbrushing equipment.
``Winning Student Gallery gave him all this self-esteem. People just don't understand what it does for these kids,'' Thornton said.
``After I saw what it did for my brother - that's what motivated me to do this for my kids,'' Thornton said. WINNERS
First place ($600)
Ashley Kiriluk, Catholic High School, Virginia Beach
Second place ($500)
Young Kim, Norfolk Christian High School, Norfolk
Third place ($400)
Amir Shabazz, Indian River High School, Chesapeake
Honorable mention ($100 each)
Floyd Logan, Deep Creek High School
Brent Paluszka, Indian River High School
Darlene Ricks, Windsor High School, Windsor*
Brant Powell, Great Bridge High School, Chesapeake
Dennis Williamson, Catholic High School
Joshua Crockett, Green Run High School, Virginia Beach
Sarah Taylor, Western Branch High School, Chesapeake*
Congressional Art Caucus Award For exhibit in Washington, D.C., in late 1995
Young Kim, Norfolk Christian
Wally Dreyer Memorial Award ($200) For excellence in photography or printmaking
Carlos Chandler, First Colonial High School, Virginia Beach
Yetta Bornstein Memorial Award ($400) Given by Tidewater Artists Association for excellence in painting
Jennifer Chaine, Smithfield High School*
* also attends Governor's School
for the Arts The Student Gallery exhibit, sponsored by Crestar Bank and The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, remains on view through May 7 at The Chrysler Museum in Norfolk. Call 664-6200 for more information. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI, staff
``Parental Guidance No. 1,'' by Western Branch 11th-grader Jessie
Lilley, is on display at the Chrysler Museum.
KEYWORDS: STUDENT GALLERY by CNB