‘Museum of Midwood Art’ Showcases Student Talent
Artists presented their work to students and teachers on the busy gallery above Bedford Ave. Photo: @therealmidwoodhs
By CHARLOTTE LEE, JOAN HUANG, AYSHA AHMED, and VIENNA CHEN
As classical flute music played along the halls of the annex bridge December 6, students crowded around a series of artwork taped up on the wall. Pictures and videos were being taken by the school’s film production crew as visitors walked through the first ever Museum of Midwood Art.
This vision of a student art gallery was guided to fruition by new principal Dr. Robert Quinlan and Midwood Mayor Elia Gorelik ‘23.
Gorelik said, “My goal as the mayor was to bring in more art classes and include students who have that talent. I feel like we don’t appreciate our artists enough, so I wanted to showcase them.”
Shakhrizoda Marlyanova ‘24 painted Frida Khalo, one of her favorite artists, using watercolor and acrylic paint. The painting obscures the bottom half of Kahlo’s face, instead giving full attention to the flowers in her hair.
“I was inspired to draw the ‘Frida Flowers’ because everyone remembers her by her face, but they don’t really know the struggles she faced behind her beauty,” Marlyanova said. “This piece represents me because she doesn't really hide. She tries to be ‘real,’ and that’s my goal, to live my life as I want and not change to please others.”
Fiona Yong ‘24 submitted a painting of a sunset. “Since I had limited materials, I just drew the basic sunset, but I also added poppy with posca markers because I was trying to use the dotting technique along with the paintbrush to make speckled stars,” she said. “It's a combination of techniques I picked up over the years.”
Yong’s painting also represents a part of herself. “I like to find the subtle things in life, so all the smallest details, I do notice,” she said. “There’s a lot of darkness in life, but we find those things that make us happy.” For her art, is one of those things, she said.
Emma Grigoryev ‘24 created a digital piece — a portrait of a siren looking off into the distance, singing her song to lure people to her.
“I wanted to take a darker turn on the siren,” Grigoryev said. “It's kind of becoming softer and not true to the story, so I wanted to make something with more of an eerie look.” Grigoryev took non-copyrighted images, edited them together, and changed the values and colors.
“Typically the siren's story is of mermaid women who sing their tune to lure men into the ocean,” Grigoryev said. “It’s kind of the same as the [job market]; you have to make your way in there, and it's harder for women, so we use these skills talking to people to get in. The siren story is a connection to using what you have.”
Emily Chen ‘24 and Anika Hossain ‘25 took in the gallery’s art while helping the film production crew capture moments from the event. Hossain also submitted a piece of her own.
Alex Grossman and Nancy Dunetz represented the Robert Grossman Award at a table on the annex bridge. Photo: Aysha Ahmed
“This is the first turnout and so many people have been here,” said Hossain. “This shows all the aspects of our students. It’s not only medical science. [Events like this] can focus on our liberal arts students, our musical students, our artists.”
Sitting in the middle of the bridge was a table dedicated to Robert Grossman, a successful cartoonist who graduated from Midwood in 1957. Nancy Dunetz ‘57, a classmate of Grossman’s, and Grossman’s son and actor, Alex Emmanuel Grossman, were sitting at the table, displaying the cartoonist’s work, which includes the famous poster for the 1980 movie Airplane!.
In honor of the elder Grossman, who passed away in 2018, an art award with a cash prize is being given out at graduation to one Midwood senior. To enter, each artist must submit three original works of any type, such as digital art, drawings, or paintings. Dunetz explained that the art fair “seemed like a perfect time to introduce people to [the award] and let them know that it's out there.”
“[Grossman] didn’t only inspire artists, he inspired everyone,” she said. “The people who read his cartoons, the people who looked at his caricatures, they were very proactive.”
“My father’s classmate formed the Robert Grossman memorial committee after he passed away with the idea of inspiring students to pursue careers in art and socially conscious art,” said Alex Grossman. “He always said that the most important thing is to find the thing you want to do and go at it. If someone were to say ‘I can’t draw,’ he’d go, ‘You can draw, of course you can,’ and he would sit there and give him his time.”
“My father was someone who was very much about friendship, so he kept up with his close group of people from Midwood his entire life until he died at age 78,” Alex Grossman said. “To honor him here at a place where he started really drawing and got into it, it seems kind of perfect.”