THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 15, 1996 TAG: 9604150056
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 132 lines
For five dozen of the area's top high school artists, it was a visit by art world royalty. Really.
Tom Sokolowski, newly named director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, came to The Chrysler Museum of Art on Sunday to judge the Student Gallery exhibit of regional high school art.
Sokolowski had never judged a high school art contest. Not that he's a snob in that regard - a man wearing a leopard tie could hardly be labeled a snob.
Still, Sokolowski admitted he took the job mostly for the chance to visit Norfolk, where he worked in the early 1980s as the Chrysler's chief curator.
``I was very pleased to see this whole range of work,'' from computer-manipulated photographs to ceramic sculpture, Sokolowski said. As an art expert who encourages experimentation, he said he was glad to see that students ``weren't being forced to just sit all day in front of a model and draw.''
Before the $2,650 in awards were announced, Sokolowski showed slides of the art by all 60 finalists, whose work went on view Sunday. He made insightful comments about virtually every artist's work - often directing them to look at pieces in the Chrysler's collection that reflected their vision.
``It is important to not just look at your own work, but to look at the work of other artists,'' he stressed.
He compared Alan Tuazon's careful assemblages of symbolic objects to the boxes of famed 20th century surrealist Joseph Cornell. In Ben Edwards' delicate watercolors of skeletal figures, the internationally known museum director saw a correlation to Austrian painter Egon Schiele.
Connections he saw between works were sometimes surprising.
When Allison Zedd's series of Polaroid images flashed on the screen, Sokolowski said they reminded him of Renaissance paintings in the Chrysler which - like the ``Peanuts'' comic strip - tell a story through successive images.
He suggested that Latoya Butcher's black-and-white photos of ice-covered limbs might look best installed in the museum's glass galleries, where Sokolowski said leaf forms in glass are on display.
He began his talk by pronouncing that art ``is about encapsulating strong emotions in our lives.'' He ended by making a pitch for parents and students to become regular museum-goers.
``Art should be an everyday part of our lives. Art can tell us more about ourselves than we think we know.''
Afterward, the audience critiqued the critic.
``He's got an imagination of his own, and I've got an imagination of my own. And some of this stuff looks like it came out of a junk yard,'' said Bob Vertz of Chesapeake, grandparent to finalist Lisa Hampton.
``He's probably one of the best judges we've ever had,'' said Tom Felton, art supervisor for Chesapeake public schools. ``He had a tremendous amount of insight into how art fits in with education, and with all of society.''
Then it was back into the museum's theater for the awards ceremony, during which Great Bridge High School senior Brant Powell was handed the top prize. More than 500 high school juniors and seniors had submitted work for Student Gallery preliminaries in mid-March.
``This could not happen to a better person. He is one of the hardest-working kids,'' said his art teacher, Darlene Thornton.
Powell, 18, won for two precise drawings using pen-and-ink and pencil. One of the drawings, depicting a Roman soldier, suggested concerns about wartime destruction. The other, called ``The Garden Path,'' centered on an old Chinese farmer.
Sokolowski said he liked the work's crispness as well as the meaningful interplay of symbols and patterns.
The artist sees a story in ``Garden Path.''
``He's a farmer,'' said Powell, ``and he's going to take his crops to the city. And maybe the city is not what he perceives it to be. He might not get as much money as he would like.''
But the story is not so obvious. Powell said he wanted the image to remain mysterious. ``I want you to have to study it and draw out your own interpretation.'' MEMO: THE WINNING ARTISTS
First place ($600):
Brant Powell, Great Bridge High School, Chesapeake
Second place ($500):
Bo Moon, Norfolk Christian High School, Norfolk
Third place ($400):
Daymen Robinson, Granby High School, Norfolk
Honorable mention ($100 each):
Neleh Barcarse, Indian River High School, Chesapeake
Lawrence Bonniwell, Nandua High School, Onley
Ryan Dixon, Windsor High School, Windsor *
Ben Edwards, First Colonial High School, Virginia Beach *
Jessica Koch, Granby High School
Hoang Nguyen, Hampton High School, Hampton
Hafeeza Sawyer, Cox High School, Virginia Beach
Congressional Art Caucus Award for exhibit in Washington, D.C., in
late
1996:
Oscar Fajardo, Green Run High School, Virginia Beach
Wally Dreyer Memorial Award ($200); for excellence in photography or
printmaking:
Neleh Barcarse, Indian River High School
Yetta Bornstein Memorial Award ($250); given by Tidewater Artists
Association for excellence in painting:
Isabell Hendrix, Cox High School*
* also attends Governor's School for the Arts
ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTOPHER REDDICK
The Virginian-Pilot
The Student Gallery exhibit is a range of work by regional high
school students from computer-manipulated photographs to ceramic
sculpture. The judge was Tom Sokolowski, director of the Andy Warhol
Museum in Pittsburgh.
Tom Sokolowski, the Chrysler Museum's chief curator in the early
'80s, had never judged a high school art exhibition.
Brant Powell, a Great Bridge High School senior, was handed the top
prize Sunday at the Student Gallery exhibit of regional high school
art. Powell, 18, won for two precise drawings using pen-and-ink and
pencil. One of the drawings, depicting a Roman soldier, suggested
concerns about wartime destruction. The other, at bottom right, is
called ``The Garden Path'' and centers on an old Chinese farmer.
``This could not happen to a better person,'' said his art teacher,
Darlene Thornton.
GARY C. KNAPP
by CNB