The AP Art Show held last Monday, March 23 to Friday, March 27 in the theatre lobby expressed an array of varying ideas and talents. The show featured AP art students such as seniors Colin McHugh and Mackenzie Wade; juniors Emily Robinson and Kaitlyn Perrier; and sophomores Erin Rauber and Lucy Zhu.

Melissa Zemann, who has been teaching AP Studio Art for four years, said students began building their portfolio May of last year. The portfolio consists of three sections: breadth, concentration and five quality pieces that are mailed in to the College Board. By the end of the school year, each student will have completed 24 pieces.

Zemann said she enjoys watching her students develop as artists throughout high school. Some students she’s had as freshman through seniors.

“I love seeing the creative things the kids come up with and seeing how different each of them are as artists and kind of finding their voices as artists,” Zemann said.

Emily Robinson, junior, started her portfolio with an abstract painting. She said it all started when she was getting frustrated and wanted to vent, so she just started slapping paint onto a canvas.

“It was more loose and easier for me to paint that way, so then I just started to not try to focus so much on making everything perfect and just let my feelings show through,” Robinson said.

Robinson used a variety of mediums such as gel, a smashed mirror, ink, wire and cardboard in order to create more texture and add a three dimensional element to the art.

“[Art] can just be what you want it to be,” she said. “It’s up to your interpretation as to what it is and how good it is, and nobody can really tell you how it’s supposed to be.”

Another artist at the show, Erin Rauber, sophomore, made her concentration her family.

“I did a lot of my photos of the beach that I always go to and my dogs,” she said. “Just kind of showing my family and things that make up my family.”

Rauber said the AP art course is more stressful because there is more to get done, but because it is something she loves, it isn’t as bad as normal homework.

Similar to Rauber, Lucy Zhu, sophomore, also said the course is more challenging than other art classes; however, she also enjoys it for its abundance of opportunities within the art realm that it offers her.

For her concentration, she focused on trying to produce a “flowing” appearance within her artwork in order to create an image that appears more as a whole rather than scattered pieces.

“Anything practically can inspire a piece, but most of my artworks are inspired from dreams I had or from everyday life experiences,” Zhu said.