Illinois State University School of Art is pleased to announce the opening of this year’s Central Illinois High School Art Exhibition. The exhibition is free and open to the public and will be on view until February 16 in the Center for Visual Arts, room 110 during select hours.

The exhibition includes 200 works by students at 14 Central Illinois high schools. Art teachers submitted their students’ work in nine categories—drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, photography, design, new media, printmaking, and mixed media—for consideration by jurors. Awards were announced during the opening reception and college fair held on Saturday, February 2 and included recognition in each of the categories in addition to Best in Show; first, second, and third place overall.

The following schools and educators participating in the show include:
Blue Ridge High School, Farmer City
Sara Wieber

Centennial High School, Champaign
Josh Doniek, Shannon Percoco, Stacey Gross, and Rachel Kinney

Central High School, Champaign
Enrika Stulpinaite Maldonado, Carol-Lynn Comparetto, and Ravyn Rodgers

Dee-Mack High School, Mackinaw
Sam Ingram and Keri Leach

Henry-Senachwine High School, Henry
Frank Bush

Lexington High School, Lexington
Emma Long-Ingram

Lowpoint Washburn Junior and Senior High Schools, Washburn
Whitney Johnson

Moroa-Forsyth High School, Maroa
Michelle Sendy

Peoria Notre Dame High School, Peoria
Maggie Off and Rebecca Goodell

Pontiac Township High School, Pontiac
Nick Vogt

Prairie Central High School, Fairbury
Casey McCullough

Tri-Valley High School, Downs
Rachel Angus

Urbana High School, Urbana
Jill Lagerstam and Roberta Westerman

Washington Community High School, Washington
Jayme Banzhoff, Jack Clifford, and Margaret Kuchan

The Jurors for this year’s exhibition were Claire Hedden and Kendra Paitz.

Hedden is a ceramic artist and educator. She studied ceramics, earning her B.F.A. and M.F.A. from NYSCC at Alfred University and a Post Baccalaureate from UMASS-Dartmouth. She currently teaches ceramics at Illinois Wesleyan University, the McLean County Arts Center, and in Continuing Education at Heartland Community College. She was a curator at the McLean County Arts Center for six years.

Paitz is the director and chief curator at University Galleries of Illinois State University, where she has been employed since 2008. She has supervised the publication of ten exhibition catalogues at University Galleries. Her essays and interviews have been published by University Galleries, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicaog; Daylight Books; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; and Golden Parachutes, Berlin. Paitz is the founding director at Violet Poe Projects, an independent artist-project space in her home from 2010-2015.

The eight colleges that participated in a college art fair included American Academy of Art; Flashpoint Chicago; Illinois State University; Northern Illinois University; Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design; University of Illinois at Chicago-College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Western Illinois University.

This exhibition is co-sponsored by the Illinois Art Education Association and the Illinois Art Education Association Central Council.

Hours for the exhibition are:
Sunday-Monday closed
Tuesday 9:30 a.m.–noon, 1-5 p.m.
Wednesday 9:30 a.m.–noon, 1-4 p.m.
Thursday 9:30 a.m.–3 p.m.,  4–5 p.m.
Friday 9:30 a m.–4 p.m.

Public parking is available in the South University Street Parking Deck (600 S. University St., just north of Beaufort) for $1 per hour. Please note that on weekends, surrounding red and green surface lots are also free and are marked as such on the signs posted at the entrance of each lot.

View University parking map.