A Musician’s Winter Dream

Art is a subject that evokes creativity, confidence, and passion within students. At SLAS, we encourage and cultivate the shared Core Values and work to integrate it within the various disciplines found in Art with our Wildcats, ensuring everyone has the tools and opportunity to show their unique ‘voices’ through their work.  

One of our unique student voices has had a resounding reception having placed in 4 competitions this summer including a competition run by the European Association of Culture and Education. G12 Annyka Ma’s piece “A Musician’s Winter Dream” along with a few other pieces will be showcased in Paris at the world renowned Louvre!

The competition is based around surreal art and focuses on artists such as Pablo Picasso. Each student is encouraged to show their distinctive style and creative flair, and Annyka certainly did that. Here are some of her thoughts:

Inspirations: My inspirations for this painting mainly came from Salvador Dali, a famous surrealist artist. I was captivated by the randomness and ‘nonsense’ that was presented by his paintings and the surrealist art genre in general, which spurred me to create my own surrealist painting. I was mostly inspired by Dali’s painting “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” and Kush’s “African Sonata”. These works motivated me to paint the animals as a main component in my project. Moreover, I was also inspired from Savanna watering holes, which is where animals gather around a pool of water in savannas. For the texture of the water in my painting, I took inspiration from Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night’, hence the colorful streaks of paint. I replaced parts of the elephants with instruments because I just had a random thought that tubas sounded vaguely like the call of an elephant. 

Process: I mainly used blue, colder colors for the background to push the mountains backwards, while highlighting the yellow, brighter savanna in the foreground. This way, you can still see the snowy mountains clearly yet they do not become too prominent to clash with the animals and savanna.

Afterthoughts: “I believe art is an indefinite, formless entity that is brought into shape by the randomness and miscellaneous experiences pieced together within the mind of the artist. There has never been a necessity for a specific purpose to make art, for art at it’s purest form is an expression of the state of mind.”

SLAS will continue to strive to support in the nurturing and fostering of young talents such as Annyka for future national and international success! Follow for more updates!