Steinbach Christian School students to exhibit at Steinbach Cultural Arts Centre

Steinbach Christian School students will be exhibiting their artwork at the Steinbach Cultural Arts Centre’s Hall Gallery and Studio Gallery from Jan. 9 to Feb. 20.

“I think we sometimes put teenagers in a bit of a box and assume a lot about them. I think these types of exhibits that show adolescent artists – teenage artists – that we can still learn a lot from them and that they have fresh ideas that we can be inspired by as well,” said Ryan Polinsky, head of the school’s visual arts department.

SCS has exhibited previously at the Steinbach Cultural Arts Centre, with the last time being before the COVID pandemic. This year’s theme is tension and conflict in storytelling, which was left open to the students’ interpretation. They were shown other artists’ interpretations of tension and conflict to get them thinking about the theme.

“Stories aren’t interesting without some sort of conflict. Even if we don’t want that conflict to be there while we’re reading it, we still find it very intriguing to see how it gets solved,” said Polinsky.

“And so we just talked about visual and non-visual tension that we can feel in our own lives. I gave them blank canvases, and they did a lot of introspection.”

Forty students will show their interpretations of the theme through acrylic paintings, some of which have 3D sculptural elements coming out of the canvas.

A couple of examples of how the students showed tension include water coming out of a cup and hanging in mid-air and the tensions that arise when a couple are getting a divorce and how that affects their children.

“I’m pretty happy with how there’s just so many different angles that the students took on to depict conflict and tension. Some are dramatic. Some are kind of goofy. Some show an incredible amount of detail and skill,” said Polinsky.

The visual arts teacher said, historically, students are reluctant at first when they are told their artwork will be on exhibit, but soon they get a renewed sense of pride and accomplishment when they see their artwork on display with people viewing their pieces.

Polinsky said what separates this exhibit from past SCS exhibits is the variety of mediums and depictions of a theme that was purposefully left wide-open for interpretation.

“Usually in the past, we’ll do watercolor endangered species (for example). I have a bunch of animals with watercolor. They look beautiful, wonderful. But this one, each and every single one of them is vastly different from the next…I have not (left the theme open like) that before,”

What Polinsky wants visitors to take away from this exhibit is that tension isn’t necessarily something that people seek out, in conflict especially. “But when it comes to storytelling and growth, we need it in our lives.”

“We can use it as a positive thing to grow as individuals,” he added.