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 Public Art; Drawing and Printmaking; Digital Art Foundations, and Adobe Photoshop classes will be participating by exhibiting 40 artworks 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. To view the full exhibition visit: https://sosartcincinnati.com/sos-art-2021-exhibit/
Equity and Equality
Painting and Public Art students began by creating a list of things you would like to show about themselves through self-portraits that are related to the concepts of Equity and Equality. These ranged from individual characteristics to stereotype-fighting features with regard to a particular identity group you felt they belonged to.
Chloe Doerger “Identity Constructs” 
Jada Kidd “Perception of Youth” 
Sophia Osborne “Liberty and Justice for All” 
Olivia Burnett “Lady Like”
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.
Abby Marcum “Influential” 
Erin Olakanmi “Courageous” 
Flynn Koehler “Phenomenal” 
Juliana Iglesias “Leadership” 
Leah Stolla “Strong” 
Olivia Burnett “Poet” 
Sarah Young “Courageous” 
Sophia Osborne “Power” 
Sydney Berting “Presidential”
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.
Sydney Berting “Daydreams Dancing” 
Olivia Burnett “Woman Triumphant” 
Samantha Gerde “Ascension” 
Leah Stolla “Liberation” 
Sarah Young “Dreams of the Future”
Social Perspectives Prints (Drawing and Printmaking)
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.
Brayden Hall “Censorship” 
Erin Olakanmi “Mental Illness” 
Flynn Koehler “Heterogeneity” 
Leah Stolla “Gun Violence in Society” 
Olivia Burnett “Gun Violence in Schools”
Art & Civil Rights
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.
Tuse Alexandre “War” 
Damien Ball “Tragedy of May 4th” 
Dawson Wagel “Hard Times” 
Tatiana Jones “Kansas” 
Lilian Heil “March for Justice” 
Lily Keith “I Have a Dream” 
Ethan Ridder “I Can’t Breathe” 
Sammy Swafford “Iwo Jima” 
Emma Wickens “Stop Racism”
Self Portraits
Every artist tells a story through a portrait. Portraits have been an important part of art for countless centuries. No matter the time or culture in which a portrait was created, the shared human experience makes them relatable.
Grace McGowan “Annoyance” 
Nick Turner “Unmasking”
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.
Anneliese Haskins “Labels” 
Caden Cadle “Save the Bees” 
Mia Schorsch “Lupine”
Comic Heros Face Off Against Global Issues
Students are called to design a PSA poster with a DC or Marvel Comic Hero or Villain Saving or Destroying the World from a Global Issue. Students choose a global issue after researching world news. After comparing and contrasting DC or Marvel Comic Heroes/Villains they choose the best character to represent their issue. Understanding the purpose of PSA in print, students create a poster that communicates awareness using the tools and techniques found in Photoshop to composite images with text.
Dylan Combs “Inequality” 
Jack Hoeting “Mental Illness” 
Oladayo Olakanmi “Mental Instability”
OHHS Art and Design Teacher: Jamie Schorsch “Divisus”
‘Divisus’ addresses a nation battling against itself resulting in the detrimental impact on its people. Eagles, a representation of our nation, battle against themselves focused on deconstructing each other and their ideals. The inclusion of the Owls contains a dual symbolism. The belief that the nocturnal bird accompanies the dead in their journey to their afterlife aligns with many Native American traditions and they also serves as a representation of a nation seeking wisdom while in a protective mode. Numerological elements embedded in the images relate to dates and numbers significant to the impact of the Pandemic, subsequent moments of connection formed during chaotic times, representation of those impacted by the virus, as well as representing symbolic elements of individuals.
OHHS Art and Design 