The Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago held the 10th Annual Illinois High School Art Exhibition Sunday April 19. Over 100 Illinois high schools across the state submitted their students’ work to ArtConnectED and the Early College Program for their art to be displayed in the gallery each year. This year, about 1,000 student artworks were featured, showing the talent and creativity of students from around Illinois.
10 DGN students participated in the two exhibitions held at the art center. ArtConnectED gives students the opportunity to share their complex ideas and visions to other like-minded people.
“ArtConnectED is a really cool program that allows students to earn senior scholarships, exhibit their artwork, earn awards for it, and apply for early college program scholarships,” junior Nellie Quinn, one of the exhibition participants, said. “It is truly an amazing program that promotes fine arts and artistic pursuits for students.”
Quinn’s pieces were displayed in both the Northern Regional Exhibition and the Early College Program Exhibition. Her piece in the NRE, titled “Hands-On,” showcases the fears she withholds.
“It is a self-portrait piece representing grappling with physicality, as well as my own self-deprecating, ‘hands-on’ engagement in the irrational phobia of control and embrace,” Quinn said.
Quinn’s work in the ECP, called “Holding on to Dear Life,” represents the uncertainty she has moving into adulthood, a feeling her peers might relate to.
“It is a self-portrait illustrating the complex unease I feel towards growing in age, mentally and physically, and the naive youth I so desperately try to hold on to,” Quinn said.
Another exhibition participant, senior Abigail Darrah, dived into her childhood for her piece featured in the NRE.
“My piece is titled ‘Sequoia,’ representing the breathtaking landscape and towering trees of California’s Sequoia National Park,” Darrah said. “My family and I have always had a passion for traveling and nature. Exploring the national parks has become an important part of my teenage years since our first visit to Zion in 2022.”
Darrah described her experience being selected for the ArtConnectedED event as thrilling. She was elated to find out that she’d have the opportunity to showcase her work to her peers.
“I always put a lot of time and effort into my paintings, and receiving recognition for ‘Sequoia’ made every hour of hard work worth it,” Darrah said.
One other artist, junior Stormy Fleener, based her piece on her personal mental health struggles. Her self portrait, titled “Picking Myself Back Up,” explores the idea of being your own best-friend.
“It represents my healing process from mental health struggles,” Fleener said. “While friends and family supported me, healing ultimately required me to choose, again and again, to get up. This piece represents that choice. It honors the act of choosing to continue, even when it’s difficult.”
As someone trying to get their work out there to a larger audience, Fleener was ecstatic to have the opportunity to have her work showcased in the exhibits. She highlighted what a privilege it was to get the chance to be featured in a program such as ArtConnectED.
“I never go into these sorts of things expecting to be selected, so it’s always a great surprise to learn something I created resonated with someone else,” Fleener said. “I love knowing that more people are going to see my work and may possibly connect with it.”
Former Portfolio Coordinator and ArtConnectED board member, Joshua Hoering, helped the artists in their submission to the program.
“Supporting students through the submission process is one of the most meaningful parts of being an art teacher,” Hoering said. “The exhibition itself provides a professional context for their work and gives them a clearer sense of what is possible beyond high school. As a teacher, seeing that growth and helping students reach that point is both rewarding and significant.
