A gouache Archaeopteryx drawing, a cardboard cut out of a monster, and a black-and-white painting of an MRI; these are three of the student works of visual art displayed on the first-floor and secondfloor galleries as part of the school’s 2023 Spring Student Art Show, which officially opened on May 19. Showcasing paintings, wood cuts, photographs, sculptures, and architectural models, the show incorporated art from students enrolled in all the school’s visual arts classes, as well as art from students in Afternoon Arts. Unlike previous years, the visual art works of freshmen and of students in the stagecraft classes hang alongside those of their peers on the walls of the art gallery.
The Arts Department hopes the art show will allow for students’ work to gain greater recognition, Upper School (US) Arts Teacher Marguerite White, who organized the show, said. To select art for the show, Ms. White and other teachers asked their students to choose pieces that reflected their best work.
“Towards the end of the year students are working with more confidence, the stronger their craftsmanship is, the more independence they have.”
Ms. White said it was important to include all visual mediums in a student show.
“The Arts Department is physically quite separated,” Ms. White said. “Painting and Drawing is on the third floor, woodworking’s over in the courtyard, stage craft is tucked inside the theatre. I think it’s really interesting to see all these mediums overlapping like different languages gathered together in the art gallery. We get a glimpse of the department as a collective, comprised of individual voices.
Ms. White admired the specificity in each of the students’ painting, she said. Ms. White said it was important to include all visual mediums in a student show. “The Arts Department is physically quite separated,” Ms. White said. “Painting and Drawing is on the third floor, woodworking’s over in the courtyard, stage craft is tucked inside the theatre. I think it’s really interesting to see all these mediums overlapping like different languages gathered together in the art gallery. We get a glimpse of the department as a collective, comprised of individual voices. Ms. White admired the specificity in each of the students’ painting, she said.
Three of Victoria Nassikas’s ’25 paintings—one of lilies, a mixed medium of a mute swan, and an Archaeopteryx— are displayed on the first floor gallery.
Influences for Victoria’s Archaeopteryx were the naturalist paintings of French American artist John Audubon, she said.
“Audubon was the main inspiration for using gouache, as I was trying to imitate his style exactly and because it creates a very opaque and more-vibrant-thanwater color,” Victoria said.
She painted her swan with a Japanese technique.
“I used sumi ink because I was inspired by the Edo painting style of Japan to create a very light, black-and-white painting with a little bit of color which had a watery feel,” she said.
She faced obstacles while painting the Archaeopteryx, she said.
“Working on such a large piece of paper with gouache, a medium usually used for smaller paintings, it was really tricky to achieve the level of detail I wanted to,” she said.
Tom Berentes ’23, whose painting of an MRI of his arm hangs in the first floor gallery, said the painting reflects his identity, as it portrays an injury which had a great impact on his life, he said.
“This is unique as it’s pretty rare that arts and sports are connected at BB&N,” he said. “But baseball and pitching is a huge part of my identity, and sustaining an injury caused me to sit out because I didn’t get the Tommy John surgery. Being able to draw the MRI scan while working back into throwing has helped me mentally ,” he said.
An installation on the second-floor, created by stagecraft students Iris Fahey, Sam Minsky, Alexandra Nassikas, Adrian Resnick, Bretty Riley, and Ash Surati (all ’26) incorporated a monster cut-out chasing a man and a sign marked ZZZ, to represent sleep.
“We were trying to represent the feeling of being sleep deprived and how it impacts a life,” Iris said. “The man running from the monster is us representing the stress of not having enough energy to do work.”
US Art Teacher Nicole Stone said art shows foster connections.
“These art shows share student artworks from across many visual arts classes,” she said. “It’s important that students have opportunities to connect with each other across the things they’ve made. These art shows can create the opportunities to expand their palates and be inspiring for new creative projects.”
Geneva Burkitt ’24, who has two landscapes and one still life in the show, said arts at the US are often under appreciated.
“I see a lot of the great credit for the great work everyone puts out kind of pushed away by the stress of academics,” she said.
She is glad the arts show exists, as it recognizes arts at the school as well as nature, she said.
“There’s a lot of beauty in daily life you don’t normally see that is in art.”
