Three Jupiter High students have been selected by the Norton Museum to be included in the Collage and Assemblage: Exploring the Creative Process exhibit, which opened to the public on April 9 and runs through June 13.

The selected students are Kateleen Walker, grade 12; Donovan Ingraham, grade 11; and Alexander Bereck, grade 12.

“I went into Photoshop and used many pictures taken from Creative Commons and pieced them together like a collage. I changed the hue and saturation of each picture to create a psychedelic whimsy effect,” Walker said. “Though it looks all cohesive together, alone all these pictures are very different and it took a lot of vision and finesse to get this image to come out how I wanted. It was kind of hard because I went in with just a blank canvas and I had to go piece by piece. From the background sky, moons, ruins, mountains, to the tea-set with checkered flooring.”

Walker’s piece, titled “Underland,” is inspired by Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland.” 

“My favorite part about my piece is definitely the little rabbit flower and it’s grim comedy of a story. As I said In the description of the piece, this work was greatly inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. I absolutely love this movie and Burton and one of my favorite scenes is the fight scene where the jabberwocky comes into play,” Walker said.

Walker leaned into the comedy of the intense scene from the movie.

“I love it because the jabberwocky is such a cool enemy and visually is stunning. I just thought it would be really funny if there were these two flowers that were just hanging out and suddenly a huge bird came in and ate one,” Walker said. “Because it’s just so out there and weird that it fits perfectly in the world of Underland and it’s kind of a comic relief in my mind for the movie, because as Alice is risking her life against this huge beast, a poor lil rabbit flower just got eaten and know his buddy has to wait for him to bloom back again.”

Ingraham also used computers and photo manipulation to create his piece, using a technique called “data-moshing.” His piece is titled “154.”

“Each still in the video is a sonnet added into the shot with a digital manipulation technique known as datamoshing, where you alter a photograph’s data with a text editor. In the place where code was, a Shakespearean sonnet lays in each photograph,” Ingraham said in the description of his piece.

Ingraham linked Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets to the code of a photograph he took. His work can be viewed as a grid of the digitally-altered photos or as a video slideshow.

“It was an experimentation of my work to see how I could fine tune data moshing, which in itself you can’t really fine tune,” Ingraham said. “It’s manipulating photographs.”

The Norton was able to accommodate the dual nature of Ingraham’s art piece.

“They said they weren’t going to have the video, because I did multimedia and a big poster,” Ingraham said. “They had both, which was a shock.”

Bereck used fewer words when describing seeing his piece, “The Miles Kid,” displayed in the Norton exhibit.

“It was cinematic,” Bereck said.

“The Miles Kid” is just one installment in a series of portraits Bereck has been creating over the past year.

“I create portraits of performance artists with the idea that the composition should make me feel as I would observing their performance,” Bereck said in the description of his piece. “This work in particular features what may seem to be a nonsensical quote but is symbolic of how words can be misinterpreted in such a loud setting. After a pair of friends get tired of repeating themselves and shouting ‘what’, they say, ‘never mind’ and go back to watching the performance. I miss moments like that, unimportant until they are gone.”

For students considering delving into art, Walker has advice.

“I’ve always loved art and just the ability to let myself have a raw outlet to express myself through such a complex but simple way,” Walker said. “I think the thing that drew me to making art the most, was the idea that anyone can create art and there’s so many ways to create art, meaning there’s not one certain way to make art. Everyone has creative freedom and there’s no room for judgement, just art.”

For opportunities to get involved in art at JHS, contact Ms. Knudtson.

https://jupiterwarcry.com/6723/showcase/warriors-of-jupiter-sarah-knudtson/