BTBSN Jr's 2023 Youth Art Exhibition

In the Rearview

Curated by Ishara Henry

In the Rearview opened to the public on April 20, 2023 at the Father Ryan Arts Center in McKees Rocks PA.

The Father Ryan Arts Center was the home space of the first annual Youth Art Exhibition held on April 19, 2022. In keeping with the theme of the exhibition, the second annual exhibition featured works from last year’s cohort of featured artists including Ty’aire, Aliyah, Romeo, JaNoah and Michael, whose work was also featured this year, as well as some first-time highlights including sound artist Nathaniel Jauregui, and visual artists Barry Miller, Lizz Ann McCombs, Evelyn Nagel, and Kaysie Nagel.

In the Rearview is an exhibition that invites artists, ages 17 and under, to create works inspired by pivotal moments in their lives. Curator, Ishara Henry, wrote: “Self-reflection is such an important skill to practice for personal development and healing. It's extremely important to begin to reflect on moments that shape us as people to gain a deeper understanding of who we are and who we aim to be. Through art, we can express thoughts and feelings that may be otherwise difficult to verbalize.”

I often think back to the moment when Patricia Smith was a guest poet at Slam Poetry Club when I was a High School student. She spoke to us about poems that we know we want to write, but are difficult to put into words. She taught me the tool of an unlikely or unexpected entry point: maybe it is on the back of a rhyme scheme?, or in seemingly aimless word association. The point of taking an unexpected route was that it lowers your inhibitions and has a way of putting you right in front of the thing that seemed impossible to get to. I now believe that all art can be this same way. Time can be so amorphous and filled with memory that thinking back to self in a specific moment in time can seem daunting. Yet armed with an archive of time encapsulating art, these youth artists presented themselves and spoke of the changes they witnessed in themselves over the past year.

Nate could remember the year to date. He’d just been knocked out in a boxing match and was seriously questioning his decision-making and level of presence. Nate was born into a family of Mariachi musicians, but he couldn’t relate to this sound. He found a home in Hip Hop music with artists like Logic, Kendrick Lamar, and Nas, and soon began creating beats of his own. This art exhibition was Nate’s first-ever experience exhibiting his work as a sound artist.

Nate played a snippet of the first beat he ever created and then the most recent beat he created. In reflecting on his development process, Nate said” Beats are all about balance and every sound should have its own purpose.” This approach makes him look forward to continuing to add to the balance. Within the process, he asks himself

“What sounds complement each other?” Nate is focused on getting better at making beats and he’s enjoying the process of getting better too.

Michael could remember how he felt anxious and depressed but on the cusp of greater imaginings for himself that propelled him into a new year filled with more platforms to show his work, model and live life more fully. In 2022, Michael created Inspirational Type Vibes as an affirmation of self. He says “ I wanted to remind myself that I was actually worth something. This one reminds me that I’m worth something and basically I'm a star in this bitch.”

The watercolors in Michael’s 2023 piece, “I'm obviously obsessed with you" spoke to me since I first laid eyes on them. In this piece Kennedy reflects on the tumultuous relationship he witnessed a friend experience within the past year. I had the privilege of viewing his pieces before they hit the gallery walls of Father Ryan Arts Center. Under the spotlight of the Arts Center Gallery, the colors pop! And so did my questions. I learned that Kennedy deploys his colors as language. His yellow and orange shades are representations of anger, obsession, disappointment and sadness and his blues, greens and purples shades are representations of entrapment and sadness. A toxic relationship. The canvas is split into two scenes. The bottom portion is a representation of closure after this relationship ended.

Throughout the exhibition, the theme of change was present and prevailing. From the new group of artists to the clear development of returning artists and overtly is a piece entitled change by Mercedes and Jordan who I mentored in 2022 through EnvironMentors. Change depicts a turtle is two scenarios: One in which a healthy turtle carrying the planet earth on its shell drifts towards the glint and gold of a city -- an allusion to the fresh hatched turtles that get attracted to the lights of cities and mistaking it for the sea, make their way across dangerous terrain to the place where they believe their new lives will begin. The second half of that painting depicts a turtle with a burning city on its back, making its way to the ocean.

I could see this present in the Communal paintings created at the 2022 Three Rivers Arts Festival. I remember managing the painting station when a boy named Jake came up to paint. He said the blue and white figure he created was Sonic the Hedgehog. and he wanted me to promise that no one would paint over it. His Mom and I exchanged glances and she told him that's not how this works. I chimed in: these paintings are for everyone to paint on so I can't guarantee that it won't change. In some compromise for time and artistic ownership, Jake signed his name on the painting. Throughout the day, sonic morphed from a hedgehog into a fish then a fish with voluptuous lips. but Jake's name remained untouched.

There is a certain courage that is flexed every time we, as artists and creators, decide to write something down or share a piece of ourselves and our process. Knowing that change is inevitable and quite constant the choice we make to define ourselves at any given moment in time is a bold act of self-declaration. At the very least it says" We were here" But in retrospect, it says "There I was" How warm and fuzzy to greet past versions of myself with that splendor: with full-hearted recognition and a love that only grows every time I go back in time to meet her.

Leaving this exhibition behind with a prayer on my heart: to define myself when I feel those loose ends start to tingle -- and to greet myself with love at whatever time I encounter her.

You can watch Esz' recap of the 2023 Youth Art Exhibition Here: LINK TBD