By Jaslyn Bridges
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – Camden County College opened its 53rd Annual Student Art Show with a reception on April 7 in the Marlin Art Gallery on the Blackwood campus. The show will be open to the public until April 21.
The show features works by 44 students who were chosen to demonstrate their skills in drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, ceramics and video. “The Annual Student Art Show is the highlight of the year,” said Gregory Brellochs, chair of the Visual and Performing Arts Department.
Two judges, Stockton University’s Chung-Fan Chang and Rutgers University’s Bruce Garrity, visited the exhibition to view each student’s work and to choose 11 winners, including the winner of the President’s Award, which was given for the first time this year.
Grey Kindya won the President’s Award for his drawing called “1999.”
“It’s my actual dog,” Kindya said at the reception, which took place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and drew about 75 students, parents and visitors to the gallery in Lincoln Hall. “It was a meaningful piece to me because my childhood dog just passed and this was our new baby. I hadn’t really taken the time out to draw my other dog so now for school I did.”
The piece will be purchased and will become part of the college’s permanent art collection. The award honors an extraordinary work of art that exemplifies the qualities that CCC strives to foster and develop in its students and the piece exhibits the key characteristics of focus, commitment, effort, skill and dedication to academic accomplishment and personal expression, Brellochs said.
“I love it. I love the way the shading was done. I noticed that,” said visitor Jennifer Moore as she viewed Kindya’s drawing. “You’re literally using one tool but it doesn’t look like it. You can tell the difference in everything with the artist only using the graphite. I think that is just amazing.”
This is the first live Student Art Show since the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago. “With the pandemic’s casualties, certain programs couldn’t be delivered,” Brellochs explained. “Some subjects, such as filmmaking, ceramics or sculpture, could not be taught online or hybrid. “Those categories have a little less representation than the others.”
Calista Thompson, the winner of the ceramics category, said she developed her piece, called “Breakfast,” while going through a breakfast phase in her life. “It took me about three days to create the strawberries on my own,” Thompson said. “I’d never dealt with fusing different parts together before and I was afraid when I made it because I thought it was going to explode.”
The winners in each category are:
Ceramics – Calista Thompson
Drawing – Nick Yorkonis
Film – Andrew Urban
Graphic Art (Digital and Traditional Media) – Alyssa Alday
Painting – Deanna Moore
Photography – Shawn Ball Dallion
Sculpture – Leah Kennedy
Second Runner Up – Dylan Coverdale
First Runner Up – Grey Kindya
Best in Show – Heather Steen
The President’s Award – Grey Kindya