By Kevin Johnson

Photo credit: Kevin Johnson.

Coming up this Monday, April 15 is the Honors Art showcase, a culmination of all the hard work that our Senior Honors Art students have done; not only from this year, but what they’ve prepared for through their entire high school career. For art students like Jake MacNelly (’24), this show is an excellent way to showcase the skills they have learned.

MacNelly started his Collegiate career in his Drawing 1 class last year. He got the opportunity to join Honors Art because of his performance in Drawing and dedication to art outside of school.

Each student’s showcase is a representation of not only skills but also style. MacNelly says the theme of his art is “appropriation.” He takes other art pieces and puts his art on top of it. In the winter Honors Art show, which took place at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond on Jan. 28, MacNelly used an old PlayStation and TV to create an interactive display with some of his classmates. In one of his most recent pieces, he uses mixed media to cover up a previously painted canvas. MacNelly describes his work as “very spontaneous,” saying, “All my projects are unplanned.”

Each Honors Art student has a display space somewhere on campus for their showcase, and MacNelly has been assigned the space upstairs in North Science near the bathrooms. He is going to have four hanging pieces, all connected with string and parts of technology.