The hallways of Pleasant Grove High School are teeming with organisms growing up the wall-Alice fervently seeking the Mad Hatter and shape-filled drawings of a young girl's views on dealing with life's stresses.
Art has been hung throughout the school in preparation for its 18th annual Juried Art Exhibition and Senior Art Show on Tuesday. A reception will be held at 5:30 p.m., and awards will be presented at 6 p.m.
Students in grades 9 through 12 have works represented, with the seniors having more wall space.
Nicole Brisco, art chair, said compared with previous shows, some of the freshman work this year is as strong as the creations by seniors.
"Sometimes, you can't even tell the difference between their work and some of the advanced work," Brisco said. "That says a lot about their technical skill and their creativity and just their intellect, too. They're really thinking about their ideas."
She added that this year's group of art is more eclectic, with a stronger range of quality art from students at all levels.
"The senior AP group is really large, and their work is just brilliant," Brisco said. "It's very brilliant, smart, well-thought out, technically merited."
Twenty-eight of the pieces are state advancing, four are National Scholastic Keys, 60 are AP pieces, and the other 400 works represent every art student in the program.
"I have no doubt they'll make stellar scores on their AP portfolios, scholarships and such," Brisco said.
In her instruction of the students, she encourages them to pay attention to the details, and a lot of design work has evolved through the department over the years.
"It used to be really fine art, drawing, painting," Brisco said. "But I've really tried to challenge myself teaching design to the kids, because they take that on into a lot of careers."
Senior Aubrey Hemphill's affinity for angles and lines is represented in her design-oriented, mixed-media pieces.
"My entire collection is about stress and how it affects young people and how they're not necessarily reacting to it with such the right way," Aubrey said. "The different things you stress about: health, school, parents, friends, social life."
Aubrey's interest in architecture is evident throughout the 10 pieces in the series, and she said that's the career path she's chosen.
"You can kind of see that in my art," she said. "A lot of it involves architecture."
Senior Kalee Gafford's drawings are narratives, following both the book and movie versions of "Alice in Wonderland."
"It's been very influential in my life," Kalee said of the tale about a young woman's journeys down the rabbit hole. "It's also been a very interesting theme. It's all about a girl getting lost and being found again. She's found in a different way."
She describes her line, colored pencil and watercolor works as fun and mystical.
"I have done multiples of a style.I love the bright, vivid colors, so that's what I go for," Kalee said of using the colored pencils in her drawings.
One of her drawings, "Tea Time," is a portrait of Alice with angular, blond bangs and cherubic cheeks. The face in the drawing is that of Kalee's sister, Elora Wheeler, who sat for the portrait.
"I was happy to do it," Elora said, bearing the same expression as her sister's Alice.
Jurors for the show will be a collection of college professors, artists, art educators from out of the area and alumni who are practicing artists.
"We try to find people that are successful artists so they have a good eye for work," Brisco said.
Thirty-five awards will be given in seven categories: drawing, painting, design, narrative, mixed media printmaking and sculpture.
Seven purchase awards are also given. They are sponsored by the clubs on campus, and the students' work will be framed and displayed as part of the permanent collection.
A best of show will also be given, along with a $400 scholarship by the Sanderson family.
In total, close to $1,500 will be given to the participating art students.