Long Island’s best young artist finalists announced

The Island Now

Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at The Heckscher Museum, the most prestigious juried competition for Long Island high school students, has announced the top prizewinners.

This edition marks 25 years of celebrating young artists across Suffolk and Nassau Counties. More than 300 student submissions, representing more than 50 schools across Long Island participated. Jurors chose 83 works of art for exhibition. The following students were awarded the top four prizes.

Keren Dial
Valley Stream South High School, Grade 11
Cultivating the Mustard, Colored pencil.
Celebrate Achievement Best in Show (pictured right)

Ashley Park
Half Hollow Hills High School West, Grade 10
The 2021 Press, Mixed media
Second Place, Judith Sposato Memorial Prize

Aleena Abraham
Hicksville High School, Grade 12
Storage, Oil pastel
Third Place, The Hadley Prize

Ariel Kim
Jericho Senior High School, Grade 12
Personal Garden, Oil pastel and colored pencil
Fourth Place, The Stan Brodsky Scholarship Award

The exhibition’s anniversary milestone comes during a year where virtual visits and online classes were held in lieu of in-person programs. Despite challenges, art teachers and Museum educators worked together to give high school students meaningful experiences with exhibitions on view. Museum educators involved students through in-depth study and discussion about works of art. Each student then selected a work of art as their inspiration piece. They went on to create an original artwork and write an artist’s statement explaining their creative process.

Jurors for the 2021 exhibition are Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator, and artist Melissa Misla, guest juror. Misla is a New York artist who holds an MFA from Queens College and is represented by Praxis Art Gallery, New York City. “I was eager to see the students’ approaches to creating,” said Misla, adding, “Long Island’s Best can impact a young artist in a transformative way.”

In addition to the five-week exhibition in the galleries, images of the Long Island’s Best student artworks, their inspiration artworks, and artist statements will be featured at Heckscher.org in April. Mitchell’s, the Huntington-based retailer, an Firefly Gallery in Northport will show select works in its stores in May. To mark the 25th anniversary of Long Island’s Best, the work of a number of Long island’s Best alumni will be on digital display. More information available on Heckscher.org

Long Island’s Best
PRESENTING SPONSOR The Darrell Fund Endowment
ARTISTIC SPONSOR Strong-Cuevas Foundation
PATRON SPONSORS TD Charitable Foundation, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation,
The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE SPONSOR Inna Gellerman, DDS, Gellerman Orthodontics,
Callaghan Lucerino & Associates LLP

Also on View:
Stan Brodsky: Low Tide #1 And Paumanok Places #8
In conjunction with Long Island’s Best, the Museum presents this installation of Stan Brodsky’s paintings in honor of all teachers. Brodsky was a celebrated Huntington artist and a renowned educator who taught for decades at LIU Post and the Art League of Long Island. He was also a passionate supporter of Long Island’s Best. In 2019, The Heckscher Museum inaugurated the Stan Brodsky Scholarship Award. Brodsky transformed his personal experiences of place into lyrical abstractions that capture the essence of the environment of Long Island. Stan Brodsky (1925–2019) received a doctorate in art education from Columbia University in 1959. He taught art at LIU Post in Brookville for more than 30 years and was also a beloved instructor at the Art League of Long Island. The Heckscher Museum presented exhibitions of Brodsky’s art in 1975, 1991, and the collection includes eleven examples of his work.
Wood Gaylor and American Modernism
Teeming scenes of festive revelers, clowns and performers, and his fellow artists are the signature subject matter of Wood Gaylor’s raucous paintings. In 1916, Gaylor (1883-1957) joined Walt Kuhn and other prominent modern artists in New York City to form The Penguin group. The irreverent association put on exhibitions, held weekly sketching sessions with nude models, and mounted fantastic Arts Balls, complete with costumes, comical skits, musicians, and papier-mâché props. Gaylor captured these spirited events in paintings featuring brightly-colored, flat, outlined figures in grand spaces.

About the Heckscher Museum of Art
The Heckscher Museum of Art celebrates the beginning of its second century as a source of art and inspiration. Founded by philanthropists Anna and August Heckscher in 1920, the Museum’s collection comprises more than 2,300 works from the 16th to the 21st century, including European and American painting, sculpture, works on paper, and photography. Located in scenic Heckscher Park in Huntington, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the Museum plans an expansive centennial exhibition, The Heckscher Museum Celebrates 100, opening on June 6, 2021. Visit Heckscher.org for more information. Timed Ticketing. Visitor safety guidelines available on Heckscher.org

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