SOS Art Cincinnati sponsors a yearly SOS ART Show and Event of creative expressions for peace and justice. This year, OHHS Art and Design students from: Art Foundations; Painting and Mixed Media; Drawing and Printmaking; and Studio Art AP Drawing and 2D Design classes will be participating in the event. Students will be exhibiting alongside many established artists, including OHHS Art and Design teacher Jamie Schorsch, all addressing issues related to peace and justice.
The primary objectives of SOS Art Cincinnati are:
To promote the use of art as a vehicle for peace and justice and for a better world.
To provide art-related educational programs towards peace and justice for all ages.
To help facilitate the creation and development by local artists of literary and artistic works focused on peace and justice.
To help create a community of local artists who use their artistic voice for peace and justice, who connect and collaborate.
To use art, to inform, educate and create a dialogue on issues pertaining to peace and justice.
Information about the students selected to exhibit is provided below:
Icons of Influence
For “Icons of Influence” students selected an individual, an icon of society, to research who has impacted and influenced society in a positive way. Using a stylus, with a variety of Scratchboard tools, students carefully observed details, textures, highlights, and shadows. A term was selected as a descriptor of the selected icon that was included in the work to summarize the individual’s life or characteristics.
- Tyler Backscheider, “I Have a Dream”
- Kylee Brown, “Courageous”
- Samantha Stevens, “Perserverance”
- Faith Guthier, “Peace”
- Becca Kaiser, “Selfless”
- Lexi Lepof, “Empowering”
Communicating Social Narratives: “Girl Rising”
Drawing and Printmaking students created a narrative image based upon one of the story vignettes from “Girl Rising” that they selected for inspiration. The compositions demonstrate the unification of notes and sketches taken during the viewing of “Girl Rising”, research related to the stories, and project planning completed previously. The artwork of Kara Walker served as inspiration for the silhouetting of the resulting images that convey the struggles that girls face around the globe in receiving and education.
- Madelyn Clark, “Petals of Enlightenment”
- Henry Groh, “Carry the Song”
- Chloe Howie, “The Quest for Knowledge”
- Karrine Miller, “Shelter”
- Sophia Pettyjohn, “Soar”
Societal Commentary
One of the most powerful functions of an artist is to improve our society by changing the way people think. Since the beginning of time, the greatest artists have been the ones who use art to call our attention to something that is going on in the world. The following artworks communicate a viewpoint on a topic, or a moral stance on a particular incident, that communicates personal voice through artistic interpretations. (Not pictured: Lauren Shaw, “Nature’s Glow”
- Allyson Albertz, “Ground Zero”
- Mariah Geiger, “Unspoken”
- Thalia Georges, “Without Voice”
- Alexis Hetzel
- Alyssa McRoberts, “Pressures”
- Cailee Plunkett
- Mayson Reperowitz, “Not Your Baby”
- Sabrina Ryland, “The Wall”
- Maddie Schwoeppe, “Hunted”
- Alaina Broughton, “Speak Up”
- Paula Connelly, “By the River”
- Sydni Crass, “Defenition”
- Emma Sedlack, “Segregation”
- Corrine Sizemore, “Summer Days”
- Zoe Chirumbolo-McKee, “Moo”
Students researched some of history’s most (in)famous events of civil unrest and justice and visually communicated the essence of those events through the relief printmaking format. The goal of the work was to communicate the importance of documenting the power of people who challenge the violation of Civil Rights through a media that can be mass produced. Kathe Kollwitz served as the inspiration for this project for her role in educating the people about the horrors of WWI and WWII through mass-produced prints.
- Shaelyn Kamp, “Inequality Fire Riots”
- Sam Dudley, “Tiananmen Square”
- Tala Temple, “Wake of Emmet Till”
- Daphne Glazer, “March for Our Lives”
- Leila Tuck, “Women’s March”
- Tyler Brown, “Cincinnati Rioter”
- Ryley Backscheider, “Martin Luther King Jr.”
- Amy Smith, “March on Washington”
- Patrick Gibbons, “Malcolm X”
- Skylei James, “LGBT Rights”
- Christian Arenz, “Civil Rights Jebree”
- Rosa Parks, “Catie Turner”
- Eileen Egan, “Detroit Race Riot”
- Bridget Barron, “Suffrage”
- Molly Loshiovo, “Rosa Parks”
- Maddie Von Holle, “Women’s March”
- Caden Cadle, “Baltimore Riots”
- Hadley Adams, “Equality”
- Jordanne Boston, “Women’s Right to Vote”
- Ella Goodman, “Rosa Parks Arrested”
- Isabelle Schwoeppe, “Women’s Rights”
- Maddy Kleinholz, “Civil Rights”
Symbols of Global Issues
Having learned about the graffiti style artwork of Keith Haring, students created a drawing in the style inspired by Keith Haring as a means of using symbolic imagery to communicate a message based on a global or social issue.
- Jasmyne Howland, “Text Talk”
- Terrell Dallas, “Under Pressure”
- Molly Powell, “Against All Odds”
Social Perspectives Prints
For this assignment, students researched some of today’s greatest socially conscious artists, such as Shepard Fairey, to discover what makes art powerful and life-changing. The mixed media print, collage-style work of art, communicates to the audience the students’ position on a social issue, a moral stance on a particular incident, or viewpoint on a topic that affects their life.
- Elizabeth Pfalz, “Bonded”
- Mackenzie Becker, “Epidemic”
- Mackenzie Sexton, “New Life”
- Alexis Lepof, “Money, Money, Money”
- Riley Groh, “Surveillance”
The SOS Art Exhibition, now in its 17th consecutive year, will take place at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from May 31st- June 9th, 2019. The opening reception will take place on May 31st, starting at 6 pm.
Visit www.sosartcincinnati.wordpress.com for more information about programming.