10-25-2022 4:33am

BASH Students Inspired by Artist Yenna Hill Create Artistic Response

At a closing reception of her exhibit, emerging artist Yenna Hill met senior art students from Boyertown Area Senior High (BASH) for the second time to see the work the students created in response to hers.

Connor Heil was inspired by Yenna’s work that added a figure she has named the “Mesopotamian Astronaut” to a deep blue abstract background of lines, figures, and geometric shapes that seem to flow in and through one another.

Connor’s work riffed on the ancient Greek sculpture Venus de Milo, that is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, representing the divine feminine body, whose Roman counterpart was Venus.

Connor’s Venus, presented in what he calls “abstract realism,” centered on an abstract background of wavy lines, asserts that the divine human body is both feminine and male. “What is important to me is ‘flow,’” he explains. “The color blue suggests water that flows, and fluidity is what I see in Yenna’s work and what I tried to present in my own. Fluidity in all aspects of life and art is important to me.”

Audrey Martignetti brought patterns into the background of her art, a piece that expresses the heartbreak of dementia. The patterns in Audrey’s work —inspired by the patterns found in Yenna’s work—evoke the folds and creases, convolutions that make up the brain’s cerebral cortex. Technology is presented in her random straight lines and pixels—reminiscent of a broken TV screen, a screen that seems to trap the figure behind it. “A broken TV screen resembles a broken mind,” Audrey explains.

A third student, Jaidan Goldey, did not attend the reception, but gifted Yenna with a piece of her work.

Several weeks prior to the closing reception, the students visited the exhibit of Yenna’s work as part of their studies with art instructor Thomas Dareneau. Yenna came to the studio to meet the students and answer questions about the meaning, content, and process of her work.

The after-school field trip, arranged by Thomas, is his way to provide his Advanced Placement art students with one-of-a-kind opportunities to enhance their art education.

“There weren’t enough students signed up for an Advanced Placement art class this year,” Thomas explains, “so we developed an Art Club that meets once a month after school to explore some aspect of art. This month we visited Studio B and were excited that the artist currently showing was willing to meet with the students,” he adds. “Next month we’re visiting the art studio of Carrie Kingsbury.”

Thomas provided prompts for the students as they examined Yenna’s work. “I asked them to look at the show through different lenses,” Thomas notes. “I had one student look at it through cultural contexts --how does the work tie to art history and current events, for example. I had another look at it as a curator—that is, how did the placement of the work, the use of wall text and titles affect the viewing of the show. I had a third student look solely at the construction of the work: materials and color choices, for example.”

After a few minutes, students shared their observations with Yenna who added her own context and commentary about her work and addressed the students’ observations.

Thomas continues, “After the initial discussions, I asked them to try to figure out which pieces cost more and why. We wrapped up the conversation with a discussion about a possible evolution of the work: if this was a first chapter of a story, what might chapter two look like. How might the work ‘mature.’”

To end the session, Thomas suggested that the students choose a work and use it as a spring board to create their own work and return to Studio B with their work during Yenna’s closing reception for a critique and a chance to mingle with a young, emerging artist eager to share her journey with young people beginning theirs.