Groton School Student Art Displayed at Museum for Youth Art Month

The art works of four Groton School students were on display at the Worcester Art Museum throughout March, as part of the celebration of Youth Art Month.

Art teacher Jennifer Ho chose works by Annie Fey ’20, Bensen Han ’23, Amelia Lee ‘22, and Phoebe Shi ’19 to represent the school in the exhibit, which featured art from schools in the region surrounding Worcester, Massachusetts. Groton School's works varied, from a provocative statement on social justice to a poster for a marketing campaign.

Annie's artwork, a collage called “Pink Mask,” stemmed from an Acrylic Painting assignment that began by having students list things they hated. Focusing on societal issues, Annie settled on the challenge many women face to be heard. “We were prompted to mix collage and painting to create a statement piece about an aspect of society that bothers us," she explained in an artist's statement. "I decided to focus on female leaders and figures from different times in our country’s history, who, because they are women, were not taken seriously in their times and were seen as inferior to men simply because they were female.” Black-and-white printouts of Amelia Earhart, Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sandra Day O’Connor anchored the work—“people,” said Annie, “who have all served high roles and accomplished great feats, but who are seen, above all these accomplishments as women, and therefore were looked down on as lesser."

A very different work, “Road to the Future” created by Phoebe in her Advanced Painting class, provides a glimpse into her family’s village, Shi Xin Zhuang, in northern China, and how it has changed over the decades. Painting with acrylics as a nod to the modern day, Phoebe said she also used rice paper “to indicate the clash of modernity and tradition in China.”

A self-portrait by Second Former Bensen Han, drawn in Second Form Visual Studies, burst to life with marker, pen, pastels, and colored pencils, attracting the viewer to various focal points and achieving unexpected textural nuances. “He thought really hard about what he wanted to say with his portrait,” said Ms. Ho.

Challenged to make an advertising poster for Third Form Visual Studies, Amelia created a magazine-worth beauty to promote an imaginary mango-cinnamon toast Kenyan coffee. Details included a wooden panel, the Kenyan national bird, and a logo for the coffee that Amelia created.

Each student, said Ms. Ho, “pushed the assignment beyond the expectation.”

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