Young artists ‘express’ their talents | News, Sports, Jobs

The exhibit features dozens of art pieces from student in Minnesota Valley Lutheran (MVL) High School but also featured works from, New Ulm Cathedral, New Ulm High School, Sleepy Eye Public, Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s and Mankato West High School.

A special exhibit grand opening was held Friday and featured several of the MVL artists who were willing to discuss their work.

Sarah Merritt, a senior at MVL, exhibited a painting of a peacock with the phrase “Because she is so Perfect” painted above it.

Merritt said she chose a peacock as her subject because she find the birds to be very pretty animals and she wanted to put that feeling out in the world.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran (MVL) senior Sarah Merritt stands next to her painting during the grand opening of The Grand’s Youth Art Show. Merritt said she has been making art most of her life. “It’s a good way to express myself,” she said “I can tell my story through art.”

“I am a bit of perfectionist,” Merritt said. “It was hard to decide when to be done with the piece. The challenge was it was supposed to be perfect.”

Merritt’s peacock painting was a change of medium for her. She normally creates digital art but appreciated returning to a physical media. She said physically painting better reflected emotion.

Merritt said she has been making art most of her life. “It’s a good way to express myself,” she said “I can tell my story through art.”

After high school, Merritt intends to study biology at Bethany College. In this way, her art reflects her passion. She wants to focus on animal conservation studies.

Claudia Weisensel, a senior at MVL, exhibited two sculptures. The first was a clay sculpture of woman’s head. The second was a surrealist sculpture of a half-face made from chicken wire and scrap paper taken from magazines and maps.

MVL senior Olivia Enter created a stippling landscape for Youth Art Show project. The image was created using thousands of individual dots. Enter said the process took five hours, but she was pleased with the end result.

The half-face sculpture drew considerable attention during the grand opening. Weisensel said her original plan for the sculpture did not turn out and she needed to change directions. The first version of the sculpture was too busy and bright.

“I took out parts and then painted it to take away color,” she said. Her art teacher Michael Wiechmann suggested that instead of placing a collage of faces on the sculpture, to use maps. She said this approach helped give the piece a more minimalist look.

Weisensel said before this year, she had not done much art but had come to enjoy the sculpting process. After graduating she will attend the University of Minnesota. She does not plan to study art, but might continue to make projects on Etsy.

Olivia Enter, an MVL senior exhibited a stippling project called “The Lock.” Stippling is the technique of creating an image using nothing but dots. The individual dots add up to create an optical image. Enter used this method to recreate a landscape she saw during a hike in Colorado. The process of creating the image took over five hours of work. Enter said the challenge was staying focused during the process, but said she was pleased with the final product.

“It didn’t look real until I added the shading,” Enter said.

Henry Yochim, a senior at MVL, poses with his painting “Smokey Night.” He said the greatest challenge in creating the painting was finding the right pose for the dragon.

Enter plans to attend Texas A & M to study Animal Science.

Henry Yochim, an MVL senior, has a long background in art. His project, called “Smokey Night” depicts a dragon flying against the moonlight. He used a combination of painting and markers to complete the piece. Yochim said it was not his first dragon. He sketched them a lot over the years.

“The challenge was finding the right pose,” he said. From a technical standpoint he struggled with the markers drying.

Yochim will attended Bethany University for graphic design.

Yochim was one of the few artists in the show to exhibit a piece alongside a sibling. His sister Lucy Yochim, a 9th grader at MVL, showed her stippling project titled “Genesis 3.” The dot drawing features a heavily detailed and coiled snake.

MVL 9th grader, Lucy Yochim, stands with her snake portrait. She created the image using the stippling process. Thousands of individual dots were made to create the appearance of a snake.

Lucy Yochim said she wanted to focus on an animal for her project. The hardest part of creating a snake using stippling was recreating the textures. The scales took the longest to recreate.

Lucy Yochim said her typical art style is sketch work. She also wants to continue in the art field after high school. She is considering animation.

The youth art show will remain on display at The Grand through April 24. The gallery is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The public is invited to vote favorite pieces at the exhibit. Each person may vote for up to three pieces. The winning artist will be awarded a cash prize.