'Walk With Me' visiting artists exhibition at Lew-Port

Submitted by Lewiston-Porter High School

Upper-level art students at Lewiston-Porter High School had the opportunity to work directly with four professional local artists this winter. Ceramic artist Junko McGee, Matthew SaGurney and Rob Lynch of Solo Roths, as well as artist and curator Dana Murray Tyrrell provided Lew-Port students with an inside perspective of their professional art-making practices through multiple artist workshops.

Art students were then able to make their own artworks in response to the concepts presented by each professional artist. An exhibition featuring these student works alongside professional artworks of each artist will be curated by the Lew-Port Gallery Project students.

Ceramic artist McGee (https://www.buffaloearthart.com/), a recently retired Buffalo Public School art teacher, demonstrated a variety of hand-building and wheel-throwing techniques for students. Ceramic students were in awe of her comfort and the ease with which she executed her complex pieces.

Artists Matthew SaGurney and Rob Lynch work together as the Solo Roths (https://thesoloroths.com/) to create large-scale, improvisational paintings. This dynamic duo painted live in the high school atrium for all of our art students and discussed their unique and highly creative art-making process. Lew-Port printmaking students created artworks that were directly influenced by the Solo Roths’ use of printing, repetitive mark making, and collage.

Artist and curator Tyrrell (https://danatyrrell.com/) visited on multiple occasions to share his insights as a curator as well as an artist. Lew-Port’s Gallery Project course, which focuses on curation and exhibition programming of the school’s gallery space, received feedback from Tyrrell on their own ideas and layout for a collaborative exhibition hosted at the school. Upper-level art students were able to try out some of Tyrrell’s experimental art-making techniques in an artist workshop he led.

Join us from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, in the LEVEL Art Gallery at Lewiston-Porter High School to experience the culmination of these thought-provoking artist workshops in the exhibition “Walk With Me.”

Ceramic artist Junko McGee demonstrates wheel-throwing techniques for students Summer Johnson, Owen Galbraith and Elijah Veltri. (Submitted photo)

Artist Dana Murray Tyrrell works with student Azzy Stalvey. (Submitted photo)

Judianne Schuey, Bella Carr and Kayleigh DeLuca. (Submitted photo)