Angeline Manalo barely recalls a time in her life when she didn’t want to create art.
“I remember it so vividly. It was first or second grade. I realized I wanted to make art and entertain other people.” said Manalo, an incoming freshman film and digital media major. “I just love making people happy. My imagination is big, so I have a lot of ideas I want to bring to life.”
As a senior at Bloomington High School, Manalo was part of University Galleries’ Teen Art Group. Established in 2018 by Director and Chief Curator of University Galleries Kendra Paitz and Bloomington High School art teacher Monica Estabrook, the program introduces young artists to the world of art exhibits and curation. Tanya Scott, curator of education at University Galleries, is also part of the Teen Art Group team.
The program encourages students to create, curate, and display an art collection, all while providing unique professional experiences, including a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Cultural Center.
This year, the students accepted works solely from artists with a connection to Bloomington-Normal, asking them to interpret the name and theme of their exhibit: Reflection.
“In the long run, it’s one of those things that feels deeply meaningful,” said Paitz, who guides the students through what it means to be a curator. “For me, curating is caring for the artwork and thinking about how to tell the story of an artist’s work in such a way that it preserves the integrity of their art while also introducing it to people. We’re working in conversation with the artist and the team.”
Though participation fluctuates throughout the school year, the teen art group retained a core team of seven students who collaborated to bring Reflection to life. Beginning in August 2023 and concluding with a completed exhibit in May 2024, Manalo and her friends worked hard to bring each piece together.
“We would have meetingswhere we’d come up with ideas and talk. I think it helped us cultivate one cohesive genre of what we wanted,” said Manalo.
Paitz said the experience offers young artists a chance to learn a multitude of skills.
“They’re thinking about these broader conceptual links between logistical decisions they’re making, even for things like the identification labels next to the artwork,” said Paitz. “They could have decided to use a checklist, or have a brochure, or different types of handouts.”
Manalo’s own work, an acrylic painting, is on display in Reflections. Selected by her peers, the image, titled Hog, is meant to embody the exhibit’s core theme.
“The guy in my picture, he’s the CEO. He has all these awards and medals. He’s risen through the ranks, and he’s looking down at his desk and he sees a reflection. It’s the evil hog in rags, looking straight at him. I thought it would be interesting because he’s kind of like a hog; he’s taking other people’s jobs, everything, doing all he can to get more and more money, more and more power. When he has all of that, he looks down and he sees, in the end, he’s really just a hog.”
Manalo’s artistic passions will be shifting focus to film studies starting this fall. An enthusiastic video editor, she spends hours bringing each of her projects to life.
“One of the biggest things that made me pursue film was because I do a lot of video editing, and because I love watching short films online. It’s inspiring seeing how they mix colors, scenes, characters, camera angles, storyline, all of it. I’m always thinking, ‘There’s a good story,’” said Manalo. “I figured, how about I do film? Then I can work with other people, and I love being in an active environment.”
Since the groups founding in 2018, Paitz has seen the participating students bring what they’ve learned into their art and their futures.
“It shifted the trajectory for some students in what they want to study. Some of them have been able to talk about their experiences in interviews for schools or jobs. This exhibition is on view for two months in a very public space in a large gallery facing the street. It’s something they can point to in a variety of ways,” said Paitz. “I hope they learned something about collaboration as they worked together on these projects. I especially hope the programming demystifies working in a creative field.”
For Manalo, the lessons of teen art group sketch out a lot farther than the end of summer.
“The group helped me build a sense of community,” said Manalo. “It helped me learn the process of creating something big, from coming up with a name everyone can agree with to gathering all the pieces and having an overall vision. I really liked the experience of making art and putting it in a gallery.”
Reflection will be on display until July 28. A closing reception will be held Saturday, July 27, from 2-3:30 p.m. and is open to the public.
Teen Art Group at University Galleries is supported by a grant from the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation—Mirza Arts and Culture Fund and the Lori Baum and Aaron Henkelman University Galleries Community Fund.
