Conundrum came from a concept I had of a scrambled Rubik’s Cube covered in unrealistic expectations of the perfect life, graduation, marriage, media pressures, but with a corner pulled out so it’d be literally impossible to solve. In that sense, the stains leaking outside of the boundaries of the paper allude to how the “conundrum” of conforming to today’s society pervades well into our daily existence. I submitted this piece to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards this year, where it won a Gold Key in mixed media.
Allegro Vivace was based on the flurry of movements at an honor band concert I attended, and to me, it evokes the emotional transformation that music and creation can bring upon us. The style draws from Duchamp and long-exposure photography, and this piece also won a Gold Key from the Scholastic Awards in oil painting.
Rise and Converge is a graphite/collage piece also recognized by the Scholastic Awards earlier in my high school career. Fitting the title allusion to Flannery O’Connor’s writing on race relations, the work references both its black and white medium and the convergence of words in the center, a transformation of both art and society into something new and better.
Jessica Lao is a junior at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta. She is an editor for her school’s literary magazine and a top nonfiction writer and Editor’s Choice award winner for Teen Ink magazine. Previously, her work has also been published in Evolutions and Embryo magazines, as well as recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.