3 Coppell art students winning gold seal at online state VASE event
Nanditha Nagavishnu and Drishti Gupta
On April 23-24, nine state finalists from Coppell High School competed at the online Visual Arts Scholastic Event (VASE). Jeffrey Wang received a gold seal for his artwork “Tangled in the Web”, Isabella Lucio received a gold seal for her artwork “The Original Sin”, and Jaserah Chowdhury received a gold seal for her artwork “Shop ‘till they Drop.”
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Amalia S. Figueroa-Nieves, sophomore
“A lot of my art is focused on my perspective and how I view the world, [so] I wanted to step away from that and do something that represents somebody I care about. So, I asked my dad a bunch of questions on what he wanted me to show and what date was significant to him and I made a portrait of him.”
Ashley Zhang, sophomore
“When my family took a trip to drop my brother off at college, I was alone in the house [for four days], and though I felt a sort of freedom, it was also kind of lonely. I wanted to represent that feeling in this piece. My painting has a table, and on it a few empty plates except for a bowl filled with food, representing people that used to be there and the me, one person still at the kitchen table”
Tia Pandey, junior
“I had to restart my artwork a couple of times because I was finding it hard to get inspiration during COVID-19, but I eventually took on the topic ‘world hunger’ and built a piece around it [within a week]. When I realized that I qualified for VASE, I was surprised.”
Jeffrey Wang, sophomore
“Throughout the process, I never at one point thought ‘I hate spending six hours each day in painting,’ and after completing it, I felt like all my work and effort was worth it. Even if I don’t get a gold medal, I’d feel accomplished and know that I’ve grown as an artist. I hadn’t used oil paints in two years, and the highlights and subtle tones I had to use [for this painting] made me completely relearn [oil painting].”
Jaserah Chowdary, junior
“I came up with [my idea] when [COVID-19] was at its peak during summer. The economy was not doing well and you could see the difference between how the rich were living and how people who were facing economic turmoil were living. So, that’s what inspired the economic aspect of both of my pieces.”
Isabella Lucio, sophomore
“I had two artworks that got selected. Both were portraits, but the first one was, in a way, representing the [fall of Adam after eating the forbidden fruit]. It is a charcoal work of me eating an apple, and I wanted to contrast sin and purity. The portrait is in black and white while the apple is in color. I’m my most confident while using charcoal, and the medium inspired me to play with [the contrast].”
Emily Chang, sophomore
“I’ve never gotten to state before. I did junior VASE in middle school and VASE last year at [CHS9]. I was really disappointed last year when I didn’t get it. This year I worked really hard [and] spent months on this piece so that I could perfect it for VASE because it’s always been one of my dreams to get to state. It seems unreal.”
Sadie Mishell Harp, junior
“I have ADD so I definitely knew I wanted to portray things like that this year. As I was researching different mental illnesses, I saw the dissociative identity disorder. I feel like people don’t really think about the trauma that normally causes [the dissociative identity disorder (DID)] and how that affects a person. I really wanted [my artwork] to not be from an outsider’s perspective but [rather] how it feels to have DID and how scary [it] is.”
Varshni Karthikeyan, senior
“I was trying to show fate and destiny in my culture [for my artwork]. We believe that fate is written on your head for you when you're young. So, I tried to show that with a depiction of a young girl, in black and white, with writing on her forehead to bring attention to it.”
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