Exhibit features young artists
A wide variety of art works is now on display at the CNMI Gallery for Arts and Culture on Capitol Hill, an exhibit featuring over 180 unique works by some 97 students of the Northern Marianas College.
This event being held in support of CNMI’s promising young artists is the first of its kind in the history of the Commonwealth’s lone college.
NMC Photography instructor Jim Ellis yesterday said at the grand opening he hopes the exhibit will become a yearly activity.
“We have many excellent artists on island. I was also a photography teacher in the states and comparably these students are very good. Some of them have even held the camera for the first time during the last semester,” said Mr. Ellis.
The two-week exhibit features photography, print, and ceramics inspired of “commonplace” themes.
“We did such things as a celebration of the commonplace where they have to take a common object and photo it from a radically different perspective,” Mr. Ellis said.
Students were also assigned to create art works in motion and several documentaries of the Micronesian heritage.
For the documentary pieces, students were made to go out and “document” life around the island.
Naming his favorite art works among the number of entries, Mr. Ellis specifically picked those which reflected the beauty of the Micronesian culture.
He also cited the traditional “pala pala” (thatched huts) as one ancient tradition that is slowly disappearing.
“In 20 years or so, so much of the what is here now will be gone and we need to learn to preserve it,” he added.
The art teacher stressed that one of the most important lessons he could ever teach his students about photography is to infuse a sense of “time and place” into their creations.
“If we can teach them that then they can come up with something worthwhile,” he said.
The art exhibit, in cooperation with the CNMI Council for Arts and Culture, will run from May 22 until June 9, 2000.
“We’re really trying to show the community the vast amount of art talent that is here among our students, we hope this will continue next year,” Mr. Ellis said. (MM)
