Bryant High School AP Art and Design students are being featured in a new international art exhibit at the University of Central Arkansas, created in partnership with a group of students in Vienna, Austria. The exhibit opened in December and runs through December 14 at UCA’s Thompson Gallery.
The project grew from an artist residency by Bryant High School alumnus Grayson Ruple, who returned to Arkansas to complete his residency work and selected Bryant for his required student outreach component. Ruple collaborated with art teacher Amber Cardinale’s students at Bryant while also working with a colleague teaching in Vienna.
Students in both countries created handmade postcards based on the theme “the place you come from.” Their artwork captures personal interpretations of home, community, and daily environments. The postcards will be exchanged between the two schools to help students learn about life as a teenager across the globe and encourage a sense of global unity.
Cardinale said the experience pushed students to examine their surroundings through a new lens.
“This is a very exciting opportunity for our AP Art and Design students, because it has allowed them to explore artmaking in a highly personal, conceptual manner,” she said. “Working with the theme of ‘the place you come from’… challenged them to deeply consider how they interact with and respond to the environments they navigate on a daily basis.”
She added that students discovered meaning in “commonplace and mundane” aspects of their environment as they worked to communicate their message to peers in another country.
“The most interesting thing is that while both sets of students originate from different locales, they are bound to discover that they actually have very much in common,” Cardinale said. “Hopefully this allows everyone involved to recognize our shared humanity and nurture a more global mindset.”
The exhibit’s opening reception will be held December 3 from 4–7 p.m. at the Thompson Gallery on the University of Central Arkansas campus.