ARTISTS'STATEMENT

Every year the Commonwealth School Art Show celebrates the hard work and creativity of students in our visual arts classes, and this year is no different. The fact that their work fills three galleries is a testament to how our students stepped up to the challenge of working in a completely new way. With our new school format came a new way of thinking about and making art. In our Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking classes, for example, students received weekly assignments encouraging them to look at the world around them in new ways.

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There are always limitations and constraints in art making. When students are in the school’s studios, those constraints are often imposed by their teacher, whether it be limiting what material they use or what subject matter they are approaching. To learn to be creative within those constraints, and to push against the limits wherever possible, is what our classes are all about. The lockdown provided a whole new set of constraints, individualized to each student’s living situation and the materials they had available to them. Students had to look inward for inspiration, and, in a way, fast-track themselves toward thinking like an artist with their own studio practice. Looking at the gallery of work made during the pandemic, you will see responses to assignments that are as creative, diverse, and unique as our students at Commonwealth. We could not have asked for better engagement during such a difficult moment.

Image: Anirudh Nistala'21