The Beaumont Art League is currently hosting the “Lamar Student Show” through Jan. 2. The show features 65 different artworks by 35 student artists.
“We’ve got portraits. we’ve got some ceramics, we’ve got some with color, we’ve got some with just charcoal,” BAL president Eddie Markey said.
Each student who entered the exhibition received a one year to the League.
The exhibition was curated by architect and collector Rob Clark, who moved to Beaumont from Mississippi in 1982 and started collecting art.
“I immediately started meeting the artists from the university, Jerry Newman some others,” he said . “Incorporating the local art was natural.”
Clark said the show attracted a good turnout.
“We had a workshop with the students at the university and talked about their vision and how they could portray themselves to their art, and how important it is to put art out there to get information about their works,” he said.
Once the work was submitted, Clark chose several pieces for cash awards. He looked for works that demonstrated a unique approach or an interesting ability to use color in a perfect way, or a skill assembling something that was just magnificent, he said.
“Anyone else would have picked an entirely different set — it had to be personal,” he said. “I expressed to (the students) when they came and saw the show, this is not about your work being good or bad. It’s about what work generally caught my eye and took me inside the work.”
First place went to Abigail Cardiel for her oil painting, “Milk and Honey.” Second place went to Logan Comeaux for his oil and vine charcoal piece, “Hold Fast,” while third place was awarded to Olivia Cobb for her oil painting “Emily.”.
Cameron Hood submitted two pieces, a watercolor of the sandworm from the 1984 “Dune” movie and an acrylic portrait of a ballerina.
“I really wanted to paint something from ‘Dune’ since it is one of my favorite science fiction stories,” she said. “I wanted to use the watercolor to really depict the flow of the sand and the environment of the novel, along with the roughness of the worm.”
Hood said the ballerina began as a normal portrait.
“But as I went further into the painting, I wanted to try and offset the softness and beauty of ballet by taking away her face and leaving a void,” she said. “Often, with ballet, it is the body that is visibly hurting or destroyed, but the mental aspect of dance is often overlooked.”
Clark said the show is spectacular and he changed his mind five or six times about what he was going to select.
“It was one of the best student shows I’ve seen in a long time,” he said. “The small piece that was selected as number one was a very small color painting realistically, but it was the color and ability to use colors. It just drew me in, and others came up to me later — that was my favorite piece in the show.”
Clark said he sees a lot of emerging talent in the show.
“There were particularly, 10 or 12 artists that popped out,” he said, “A couple of artists who didn’t get the winning places were selected because I got a feeling that they’re on the verge of doing something great with the work. That’s why we recognize them in the honorable mention and I’m curious to see what they’re doing.”
BAL is located at 2675 Gulf Ave. Hours are noon to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is free. For more information, visit beaumontartleague.us, or call 409-347-6166.
