Perpich Studio Arts Presents “All Our Dimensions: Reflections and Interjections” Exhibition

September 8, 2022

Perpich Studio Arts students opened their first exhibition of the 2022-2023 school year on Thursday, September 8th, 2022. The exhibition is showing in the Perpich galleries through October 28, 2022.

Titled All Our Dimensions: Reflections and Interjections, the show features artwork created over the summer by Perpich Media Arts and Visual Arts students in response to various prompts covering themes of self portraiture, what resilience means, how the student feels about their future, journaling, and memory. The students created the artwork, wrote artist statements, and prepared all aspects of presenting the physical exhibition.

In the students’ exhibition statement, written by Bea Wallace (Visual Arts 2023), it shares that “Perpich students, new and returning, have spent the summer making, destroying, building up, demolishing, polishing, and non-stop workaholic-ing to make a piece for our summer gallery exhibition.” The new students were tasked with portraying themselves through self-portrait. “The result is not only beautiful literal portraits of their outward appearance, but in many cases, their inward appearance is portrayed in a metaphorical sense, invoking imagery found in the wildest of dreams. May their debut work in the Perpich gallery receive a warm welcome from all of our students, staff, and other gallery-goers,” read the statement. “Returning seniors, on the other hand, were asked to reminisce on their experiences, and devise a way of visually portraying their important memories. The artists’ prompt was, in essence, tasking the students with reflecting on the past and portraying it for the present. All of the resulting works culminated in myriad designs and photographs, with worlds of detail and love poured into their creation. We hope that their homecoming is received with as much love as they gave to their creations.”

Sebastian Rothe (Visual Arts 2023)

Sebastian Rothe (Visual Arts 2023) is a new senior at Perpich and new to the exhibition process. “I’ve done art fairs in the past but I’ve never actually put up my stuff anywhere. I’m excited to see who comes and to see what everyone else has done. But there are nerves that come with that, there are always nerves when you put your stuff up. Especially in real life and not over the internet. But that is one of the joys of being an artist; you get to see the peoples’ reactions to what they see,” said Rothe.

Bazeen Lane (Visual Arts 2023)

Bazeen Lane (Visual Arts 2023) is a returning senior with a year of exhibition experience. “[This one] feels a lot different than my first time doing it. Especially watching all the new seniors and juniors; it’s like watching an outside perspective of who I was last year. I feel mentor-like because we all were helping the new people with the process.” Speaking about their piece in the show, Bazeen said, “My piece is all about self-reflection, hence the mirror. The title of my piece is ‘Reaching Out’. I’m reaching out for other people to guide me, like my family. Family guides so much of who we are, but I’m also myself. And I need to be myself.”

Mairin “Rin” McMahon (Visual Arts 2023)

Mairin “Rin” McMahon (Visual Arts 2023) saw differences in the prompt they received as a junior compared to this year as a senior. “Last year we were asked to reflect on ourselves. I feel like that’s really different from this year where we were asked to reflect on the world and the impact that we have had on the world,” said McMahon. Even with a year of putting up exhibitions, Rin said the process is still daunting. Despite that, “the show, surprisingly, went up pretty quickly. I think it’s one of the biggest shows for the whole year. It’s very exciting to see all the new pieces, especially from juniors and new seniors.”

Lucas Fisher (Visual Arts 2023) is a new senior at Perpich and is living in the dorm. “There’s definitely a different vibe here than at other schools and that’s kinda fun. I like the independence of living in the dorm.” Fisher presented two pieces in the exhibition, fashion items and a painting. “I’ve been getting really into fashion recently and I decided I wanted to do something in that element. I’ve been very into French culture and I’ve been learning

Lucas Fisher (Visual Arts 2023)

French. I wanted to include those elements in the clothing. I also really like Cubism and architectural design so I added those elements, too,” said Lucas. “In the painting, there’s a lot inspiration from movies such as Trainspotting. With the prompt being an inner and outer self-portrait, the clothes represent the inner self-portrait and the painting is the outer. I use a lot of spray paint and paint markers. They tend to have a certain connotation to them in the art world of being secondary to other forms such as oil paints. I wanted to use those because sometimes people see me and might have certain ideas about who I am as a person before interacting with me.”

Margo Harju (Media Arts 2023)

Margo Harju (Media Arts 2023) is more prepared for this year’s exhibition than this time last year. “[We know our art is] going to be in a gallery, we’re going to write an artist’s statement, and know exactly what the use of the art is going to be. Knowing all this can impact the final piece. Knowing it’s not going to be just your classmates seeing it but rather the whole school and peoples’ families; that impacted it,” said Harju. “Our project was on memory and nostalgia and how the lens can capture it. So I decided to make a montage of videos from this summer and stuff that I had done and put them all together with voiceover, talking about my experience with photography and film and how I choose to use them.”

Blake Herrick (Media Arts 2023)

Blake Herrick (Media Arts 2023) is inspired by all the new artists in the Perpich community. “Seeing all their art is really inspiring because I know there are a lot of people out there who are like me and into the same kind of photography and film making that I am,” said Blake. “I really love all the visual and media arts pieces and it’s kinda intimidating. I’m really inspired by the acrylic pieces because they are so detailed and they make me want to add more to my art pieces.”

Rebecca Bullen, Perpich Arts High School Assistant Principal and Studio Arts Chair, thought the evening was amazing. “I am so grateful for the work the instructors put into making the exhibition and screening happen, for the support they gave our new students, to each other, and the development over the last year that brought our seniors into their current artist selves,” said Bullen. “Parents of new and returning students raved. One had tears in her eyes as she noted the expression students shared in their art and specifically in their statements. She was so moved by the space we all create for our community to be themselves. Another parent shared that in just these short couple weeks of school their child has grown closer to them as the student is just happier in the world because, again, of the supportive environment where they are free to be an artist and feel supported in who they are and their learning.”