ArtistsEmerge

DDUBLIN STUDENT ARTISTS will have the valuable opportunity to see what it’s like to show their work in a gallery setting.

emerging, a Dublin Arts Council annual exhibit since 2002, features artwork by students who live within Dublin City Schools’ attendance area. Arts Council Executive Director David S. Guion says the exhibit was developed to “offer student artists the opportunity to experience the process of exhibiting artwork in a professional gallery.”

This juried exhibition will be judged by Exhibition Curator Ben Knepper, a Columbus artist. He looks for “an interesting, and even exciting, visual experience,” when judging students’ pieces.

“The young artists in this exhibition are very free and experimental,” Knepper says. He hopes to see the student artists involved in emerging encouraged and excited to create more artwork in the future.

As in past years, there will be four Best of Show cash prizes given, one for each of the four entry categories: grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

“I was really excited when I won Best of Show,” says last year’s K-2 Best of Show winner, Paulina Esguerra. Her piece, Owl, is a clay sculpture of an owl that she made at an after-school camp. Paulina aspires to be an artist when she grows up. “I like when you’re painting and you can paint however you want. It’s like a free thing,” she says.

Another 2011 Best of Show winner, 13-year-old Kevin Crossland, says he prefers math to art in school, but enjoys art as a hobby. He takes after-school classes at the Dublin Arts Council and enjoys geometric abstract art, which combines his love for math and creativity. He hopes to be a computer engineer someday and create art in his spare time.

The 2011 grades 3-5 Best of Show winner, 10-year-old