Every year thousands of young artists enter their art into the Colorado Scholastic Art Awards in hopes to receive awards like Gold keys, Silver Keys, Honorable Mentions, and American Visions and Voices Nominations. Winning these awards gives artists the opportunity to have their art featured in the Denver Art Museum. Two talented seniors, Ori Bennett and Harvey Rainwater both received awards in the competition and currently have their art and photography on display in the museum.
Senior Ori Bennet earned both an honorable mention and a silver key for their two pieces of multimedia art.
Their first piece of art, entitled “Allison’s Fall”, was inspired by Alice in Wonderland and conceptualizes anxiety. Their second art piece is entitled “Enough” which is meant to portray the feeling of loss.
“I have a really hard time expressing myself so it’s easier for me to express myself through art instead of saying something,” said Bennet.
“There wasn’t necessarily a specific form of media that inspired me but I was dealing with losing some of my friends; they weren’t treating me the best at this time. That’s what I was inspired by for those two pieces,”
Senior photographer Harvey Rainwater entered many of his photos in the competition. Rainwater has been into photography since the age of 5.
“I was never interested in taking pictures of things that seemed beautiful. I was more interested in taking pictures of things that people didn’t notice: dead leaves, bricks, or dining room chairs really random things. I feel like that’s how you really grow and develop as a photographer,” said Rainwater.
Rainwater describes his inspiration for this project.
“I always wanted to take pictures of mountains and I’ve always wanted to make it look like they were liquid. When I went to the sand dunes last March I was really inspired. I had my black and white lens and a telephoto lens and took as many pictures as I could,”
“This project was really a confidence builder for me,” said Rainwater.
Ori’s multimedia art and Harvey’s photography are on display in the Denver Art Museum and will be available for public viewing through the end of March. Go check it out and support our aspiring artists of LHS.