SHS advanced art students display artwork at Dillard’s
Students of the Southwest Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts (SAVAPA) recently displayed a creative use of cosmetics during an art exhibition held at the Imperial Valley Mall.
SAVAPA art students worked for three to four weeks creating original artworks using old and expired cosmetics. The artists were allowed to select their own themes, and the results were displayed at the entrance of the Dillard’s department store from March 4 to 13
Jacqueline Pleitez, the fine arts teacher at SHS, said Dillard’s Store Manager Jose Nichols reached out to let her know that he was interested in displaying student artwork at the store as an attraction for the public. Initially, the display was originally planned before the pandemic, but the original projects were never finished.
“This year I reached out to Jose, and retook the plans for the show again,” Pleitez said. “We were both excited since after some difficult times we were going to make it happen now.”
Pleitez said that the overall inspiration for the art exhibition was to recycle materials — specifically to use expired makeup to paint, like the artist Molly Fredenberg, a Brooklyn freelance artist who created art that translated from skin to paper.
“I guess I wanted this collection of artworks to fit in with the store, and then I thought of asking Jose if by any chance they had leftover makeup and mannequins that they were not using anymore,” Pleitez said.
As the students experimented with all the different materials, like eye shadow, eyeliner and calligraphy pens, they also had to find ways to find beauty in the mistakes they made along the way and embraced them into their art pieces.
“My pen, oftentimes, would overflow so throughout my art piece I had spilled ink,” said senior Jenessis Madrigal, 17. “I had to incorporate the spilled ink into the artwork so that it looked professional.”
Similarly, senior Dheydra Gonzalez, 17, said she struggled with the calligraphy pens and had to cover up the unwanted ink spills with shading.
“I had to have a steady hand, so I had to take a lot more time,” said Gonzalez, “I know how to work with ink, but I haven’t used it on such a large scale before, so it took quite a bit of time to get it the way I wanted it to look like.”
When it came to themes, Pleitez said that she gave students an opportunity for them to decide what they wanted to express in their art projects.
“I like to give the students freedom with what they create because I feel they enjoy it more when I give them that choice rather than me giving them a specific topic, and believe me, they surprise me,” said Pleitez.
In Madrigal’s case, she said she found herself drawn to the TV show character Anne Shirley from the Netflix series “Anne with an E” as the theme of her artwork. She said she could relate to the character’s attitude and eagerness to speak her mind.
“I can relate to her on a personal level because she’s always rambling and she’s always using these big words and people view her as weird or annoying sometimes, but she’s just an orphan that’s misunderstood,” said Madrigal.
She said she tried to represent herself and the way she was feeling through the different elements of her artwork.
“The colorful background stood for me trying to break out of my shell because I’ve always been considered ‘ the good girl’ so through my art piece I was like, ‘Hey, I am not perfect’ and I want to do other things,” said Madrigal.
Many students mentioned that their parents were in love with the artwork and proud of the fact that their artwork was put on display for people to see.
“My mom and my friends saw it. They said they liked the detail, animals and my art style,” said Gonzalez. “One of my friends really liked the way I drew an animal sitting on a mushroom.”
“This was the first time we worked together and displayed our artwork at Dillard’s, and based on a conversation I had with the store manager Jose, we do plan to do it annually because this first show was very successful,” Pleitez said.
Pleitez is planning additional art shows this year, including a surprise collection for Southwest High School’s Jimmie Cannon Theater.