By Vivian Collings
Haliburton Highlands Secondary School Grade 12 art students started with one word, and ended with an art exhibition.
Forgotten is the name of this year’s HHSS student art exhibition at Rails End Gallery.
The art class puts on an exhibit each year, but it was put on pause for the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s really nice to be able to do this because we haven’t been able to do these things in the last couple of years,” said their teacher, Karen Gervais. “I think students have a lot to say, and to have their voice shared with the community and make their work visible is really important to sharing that expression.”
Gervais remarked that the students learned art online for the past two years.
“It’s wonderful to be back here in person and have the opportunity to share our work,” Gervais said.
Grade 12 student Colleen Petric enjoyed the newness of putting together an exhibit from concept to finish.
She said many of the students used different mediums, which created a variety among the pieces.
“There’s watercolour, acrylic, charcoal, there’s a sculpture, lots of us used different mediums. We enjoyed putting together the exhibit and having a new experience,” Colleen said.
To come up with the theme, Forgotten, students were asked to come up with ten images that inspired them in some way.
“We played some collaborative games with responding to each other’s images,” Gervais said.
During that process, they wrote down and explored words and themes related to the images.
“We had seen a lot of images with nostalgia or that were vintage or in states of decay, so it seemed to be a really suiting word for the title of our exhibition,” Gervais said.
The exhibit at Rails End Gallery in Haliburton runs until Dec. 17. Visit railsendgallery.com/f/forgotten to read the artist statements from each student.
“This is a huge accomplishment for these artists that really challenged themselves,” Gervais said.