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EMERGING ARTIST GALLERY
Presented by Outback Trading Company & friends
The Emerging Artist Gallery features a monthly exhibition by a young, aspiring artist. The gallery is strategically located in the vestibule of the art and music academies and offers a dynamic space for exhibitions. The objective of this gallery is to give emerging artists a space to design an exhibition and ultimately gain valuable work experience while sharing their work with the community. Artists ranging in age from 10-21 years-old have exhibited in this space and immersed themselves in a professional and artistic environment alongside the Main Gallery and academies.
Thanks to the Justamere Foundation, we were able to expand our Emerging Artist Gallery space to the second floor, allowing more artwork from our artists' to be visible to the public. In part thanks to the Justamere Foundation and Chester County Art Association, we now have an abundance of frames so that we can showcase our emerging artists' work in a professional way.
Our exhibitions rotate monthly and are available during our operating hours
JANUARY
January 7-February 25
Bugs and Bones
Alex Coleman and Allie Gibson
Oxford Arts Alliance Art Academy
Talented Oxford Arts Alliance Art Academy students from Cecil County, Maryland who have been in our academy since middle school and they will be high school seniors in Fall 2022.
MARCH
March 4-April 29
The Commencement
Elena Kahn
Solo Exhibition
I enjoy trying different styles of artwork to challenge myself and grow as an artist. Two years ago, I was drawing the main character for a book report in class and many people told me it was really good. The project allowed me to see that I could draw.
Then the pandemic hit and I had time to draw and paint. I started to mess around and just kept going. I am almost completely self taught. My name is Elena Kahn, and I am an artist. I have always lived and attended school in our little town of Oxford. I am fifteen years old and a freshman in high-school.
I enjoy reading, my favorite book is currently The Throne of Glass. I have played piano for eleven years and enjoy both playing and listening to music. I have a very wide variety of music taste including, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Matchbox Twenty, and Hamilton. I have grown to love art and it has become a passion of mine. My favorite medium is acrylic paint, but I also love drawing. I am still deciding if art will be a hobby or career but I know that I will always love art.
Opening Reception: First Friday, March 4th, 2022 5-8 pm
Publications:
MAY
May 6-June 24
A Collection of Silly, Little Drawings
Rebecca Sharadin
Solo Exhibition
Oxford Area High School Art Student
Part of the Emerging Artist Gallery Project Program
My name is Rebecca Lynn Sharadin (I'd suggest you say it out loud because it has a surprising rhythm to it). I'm sixteen and have lived in Oxford for almost four years now. I'm a mess, to be honest; dealing with high school is a full-time job in and of itself. When I'm not in class or doing things for classes, I spend a lot of time with my family. I spend a lot of my time doing day-to-day chores and activities like working out or reading, which are all things I enjoy, but now and then, I can sit down and make a good piece of art that makes me proud. My hopes for the future are that I can replace high school with art college and, after that, do what I love. I love to make art and what I'd love even more than making art as a hobby is to make it a career. I don't have many plans for the next five, ten, or fifteen years, but within the next year, I aim to get into Delaware College of Arts and Design (DCAD) to major in something... That "something" is yet to be determined, but I have to survive the remainder of my Junior and Senior years until I need to figure it out. I love my cat, my family, K-Pop, and BONES.
My number one goal is to make something “outside of the box” when I create. I don't aim to confuse or disassemble; instead, I aim to challenge myself. Making art is a competition with myself, one that I’m only able to win when I’ve made something that I am proud to claim. I put every inch of myself into my work because, otherwise, what’s the point? I want the viewer to see me in my artwork, or at least my intention. I want the viewer to understand me, be excited to learn more, and adore my creations as much as I do. I’m not professionally trained, but after years of practice and improvement, I feel that my work is ready to be viewed by someone other than my 80 instagram followers. I’m most comfortable with a pen (which is evident in 98% of my pieces), and I enjoy working with any type of paint. I have recently discovered the joy of creating 3-D art and have nurtured an unparalleled affection for collage-making.
When I collected my pieces for the exhibit, I mainly chose them because they were works I wanted to show the world. There wasn’t a specific theme or purpose other than to fill up space. However, all of the results are cohesive due to the confined nature of my style and content. You can see a piece of me in all of my works, and they represent different levels of my expression. I don’t make something perfect all the time, but it’s my work, and I’m nothing if not proud of that fact. My goal is to grow my platform, and through that platform, I can become an artist of renown. All I want is to be appreciated and remembered. My work is me, so I hope to be well known as someone with skill and passion, whether in your home or a museum.
Opening Reception: First Friday, May 6th, 2022 5-8 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, June 11th, 1 pm
JULY
July 1-August 26
Kay's Kreations
a solo exhibition Kay Reyburn
Richard Beards Scholarship Recipient Student
Kay Reyburn is the 2022 recipient of our Richard Beards Scholarship for Visual Arts which is awarded to Oxford Area High School students annually. Learn more about our Scholarships.
Hello, my name is Kay Reyburn, and the arts have been my life for as long as I can remember. I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil, and have taken art classes all throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I am also an avid sewer. In addition to art, a large portion of my time is dedicated to music - including piano, flute, singing, and theater. I did not become serious about art until quarantine. During this time I started my own Etsy store called KaysKreations20, where I sold face masks, scrunchies, painted slates, custom paintings, and custom sewed items. Although my Etsy shop is now temporarily closed because I no longer had the necessary time to put into it during my busy senior year, this venture had a large impact on my decision to pursue art as a career. I am a 2022 graduate of Oxford Area High School, and in the fall I will be attending Messiah University and majoring in Studio Art. I plan to also add a second major in Business Administration. My ultimate goal is to glorify the Lord with whatever I do, as he is the source of life and talent.
I tend to stick to realism in my artwork, and I gain satisfaction through the challenge of depicting objects as they are. My favorite mediums to use are pencil, acrylic paint, and micron pen with colored pencil. However, I do like to experiment with different ideas, styles, and materials. Seven of the pieces in this display are from the portfolio I created in AP art class this past year. My sustained investigation in this portfolio focuses on historical women’s fashion, and explores trends in women’s fashion from the 1910s through the 1940s. This exhibit also includes some of my t-shirt and program cover designs, 4-H sewing projects, quarantine creations, and art class projects.
Opening Reception: First Friday, July 1st, 2022 5-8 pm
SEPTEMBER
September 2-October 28
Dwelling
a solo exhibition by Holly Dudley
Carlson Cultural Trust Grant PAFA Student
Holly Dudley is a painter from New Jersey and has been spending the summers in Pennsylvania painting landscapes in the Kinseyville and Lancaster areas. Dudley is a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. She is pursuing a painting major currently in her fourth year. Dudley has spent time studying at Mount Gretna School of Art in Mount Gretna, PA. This Summer, Dudley was the recipient of the Carlson Landscape Residency. Dudley likes to find geometry, rhythm, and space in her work. She primarily works in drawing and oil painting. Her work focuses on landscape, figurative, and interior subject matter. Her work strives to look at her subject matter and share the visual impact that light and forms can achieve to make spaces that make up her own visual experiences.
In my work, I focus on geometry, rhythm, and light to create space. I look to artists like Piero Della Fancesca, Degas, Cezanne, and Lennert Anderson. In my recent work, I have been starting to incorporate synthetic painting into my primarily observational painting practice after studying with E.M. Saniga. Finding geometric designs and rhythms in the paintings is important for me to find in life and my work. I make art as a way to explore the motifs that interest and engage my visual imagination. I want to make paintings that show intimate as well as complex relationships between me, my models, motifs, and my artwork itself.
Opening Reception: First Friday, September 2nd, 2022 5-8 pm
NOVEMBER
November 4-December 16
Perceptual Bodies
a solo exhibition by Lillie Spotts
Lillie Spotts challenges historical traditions of the feminine form defined by the male voyeur. Through portraiture and figurative art she is able to capture the importance of visual identity in the formation of a sense of self as well as its relationship to gender. She works slowly to build up a textured surface with layers of paint and pastels, emphasizing the body of her subject and the experience it holds as well as the motion and state of her own body as she is creating. This process allows her to be more present in what she creates, with each stroke of paint and each mark of pastel representing a part of her and who she is at the moment she is working. The subjects she chooses in her work are people familiar and meaningful to her and who have impacted her journey towards self-understanding. This contemplation of her own self in addition to the examination of familiar subjects is central to her desire to explore how a sense of self is sculpted through visual perception. By choosing subjects who are meaningful to her and working from live observation, she is also able to capture who her subject is at the time she is working, leaving each work of art to exist as a relic of them both.
Lillie Spotts is a Maryland-based portrait and figurative artist compelled to challenge historical visual representations of women and gender non-conforming people through multimedia creations. She utilizes the physicality of traditional materials such as acrylic paint and pastels to layer textures and build upon the surface of her works, resulting in a push-and-pull of two and three-dimensional forms. In addition to her large-scale paintings, Lillie examines the human form through prints, drawings, and digital paintings. She works to capture the essence of the body and the impacts of its presence in the experiences of those around her. With her recently-earned degree in Studio Art and minor in Educational Studies from St. Mary's College of Maryland, she hopes to engage with the communities she is in and use her passion to encourage children of all backgrounds and identities to find their voices and to express themselves in safe and healthy ways while continuing to challenge the oppressive systems responsible for silencing the voices of others.
Instagram: @spottedlillies_studio
Facebook: Spotted Lillies Studio
Opening Reception: First Friday, November 4th, 2022 5-8 pm