Six Greenhill photography students were recently selected for the Art214 Biennial Juried Exhibition, a showcase highlighting talent within Dallas. Their pieces will hang in the Latino, South Dallas and Bath House Cultural Centers until late April.
“Getting to meet other artists, and to have work in the same place they do is really cool,” junior Aaron Stein said. “I never would have imagined seeing my work in professional exhibits like this.”
The seven works by six Greenhill students were selected by a panel of five professional curators, and they were selected from the 1,300 entries across North Texas.
Upper School Photography teacher Frank Lopez says being picked from thousands of entries as high school students shows the immense ability of Greenhill’s photography program’s members.
“The cool thing is that nobody ever said that high school students couldn’t apply, so we’ve been applying for this ever since they created it,” Lopez said.
Competing against professional artists, the students showed experimental techniques rarely seen by high school photography programs. Lopez says that with the Greenhill photography program, it comes down to having the ability to produce high-quality works to submit to shows, such as the Art214 exhibition.
Greenhill Photography teaches a variety of exploratory techniques, as a 19th through 21st century technology-based program. Some major techniques include multiple exposure photography and using the silver gelatin process to yield an image with deep black coloring.
“The students can speak about their work, we deal with issues, and they take whatever method of creating art to go deeper into their work,” Lopez said.
The application begins with an open call, and students can submit any piece they choose. If there are issues with the pieces, they work to fix them, and Lopez encourages the students to work with different techniques as well.
Stein’s two selected pieces utilized sabattier, which reverse an image’s color, and mordencage, which lifts the shadow off the paper.
“I chose my pieces because they show how different Greenhill photography is,” Stein said. “So many people came up to me, and it was cool to be able to teach other artists about techniques.”
Later, the judges select which pieces go in each exhibit. Often, they will hang Greenhill’s works together in the gallery.
Although Lopez tries not to focus on contests as a part of the curriculum, he is still excited to see which students get selected for exhibitions.
“I want to be able to teach things that allow students to express their art,” Lopez said. “I am so very proud of my all my students who got in, and those who applied.”
