Northwest Sophomore Art Show is on Display at Art Gallery

by Sarah Smith

Senatobia, MS (04/20/2023) — Every spring, Northwest Mississippi Community College's sophomore art students put their art on display in the Art Gallery on the Senatobia campus to showcase their finest works from their time at Northwest. The Sophomore Art Show will be open to the public through April 27.

The art displayed this year is inspired from students' experiences traveling, learning about history, and expressions of their own personalities.

Peyton Barr of Nesbit was inspired by historic events for her Mickey Mouse gas mask piece. Barr said this piece is about the gas masks that Disney made during World War II.

"The Mickey Mouse painting is what it's called unofficially," Barr said. "It's an object from World War II. It's a mask that children would wear during World War II because children would be scared of gas masks, and within reason-they were in a war time. So, the masks were scary, the bombs were scary, and they were children, they didn't understand anything. So, Disney came out with Mickey Mouse gas masks for kids to wear, which were quite creepy things. Very unnerving to look at nowadays. Maybe not back then."

Annie Haddock of Southaven made a piece which won second place at the MC/JCAIA art competition called "Two Sturgeons." Haddock said this piece is based off a picture she took at Tennessee Aquarium. Haddock said this is her first negative piece.

"It was a lot of background work, so I couldn't mess up," Haddock said.

Negative refers to the way it's painted, Haddock explained. Negative paintings have the darkest colors in the background and the lightest as the subject, not unlike negative photography. Haddock said that it's a time-consuming process of working on the background then moving forward.

Addison Pilant of Southaven is inspired by her own experiences, as well as influences from mythology such as her piece "Good Dog", which features a three-headed dog known in Greek mythology as Cerberus. Her piece, "The Tunnel" features a tunnel that almost resembles old railroad tunnels that plumet into darkness.

For more information about events going on at Northwest, please visit our calendar at www.northwestms.edu/news-events/main-calendar.