Already blessed with an artist’s eye and technical skills, Yici Chen examined the inner-worlds of society and psychology that art can uniquely illuminate. These attributes combined to help the Orange Lutheran senior claim Artist of the Year honors in Handcrafted Visual Arts.
In her final portfolio, Chen offered three diverse choices: a set of three dioramas with hand painted clay figurines; a gouache watercolor of a village in Scotland; and a series of ink drawings with micron pens
The collection of clay pieces highlighted Chen’s interest in sociology. Titled “Social Images,” it made a cleverly subversive and humorous statement about how people choose to aggrandize themselves on social media, contrasting to the reality and totality of their real-life situations.
In each of the pieces, by focusing on just one part of themselves, the characters are presenting false impressions.
By faking what she called’ “exquisite lives,” Chen said, “social media is intensifying this phenomenon among younger generations today, creating toxic environments for them to grow up in, causing anxiety and self-blame.”
Similarly, in the pen drawings, titled “With and Without,” Chen looked at psychological dualities in depression, Alzheimer’s and bulimia. The six drawings showed flip sides of each of the mental disorders: what outsiders see and what the afflicted experience.
One day, Chen says she’d like to be able to grab her sketchpad and hit the road.
“I want to travel around the world, hear tales and folktales from every country around the world,” she said. “After hearing the tales, I will turn those tales into illustrations, children books, or toys.”
See all of the semifinalists for handcrafted visual arts
Chen’s original portfolio, mostly still-lifes and portraits with different media, showed her technical skills. She plans to major in illustration in college.
In discussing her work, judges ranged from calling it “vibrant and whimsical” while it also doesn’t shy away “from the darkness that resides in many of us.”
See all of the nominees for handcrafted visual arts
Judge Kristin Campbell, an assistant professor at Chapman wrote, “Yici Chen has the soul of an artist. She’s drawn to the analysis and depiction of the innermost thoughts of herself and others.”
Judge Brian Schultz, a ceramics teacher from Capistrano Valley High, said her work “exploded my brain!”
Handcrafted visual arts finalists
Handcrafted Visual Arts is divided into four specialties: ceramics, hand drawing and painting, mixed media, and sculpting and metalwork. Artist of the Year Yici Chen is the finalist in hand drawing and painting.
The other finalists are:
Ceramics: Heather Lynn Rocheford, El Dorado High School
With plans to go to nursing school, Heather Lynn Rocheford, a senior at El Dorado High, showed a different skill set emerging as ceramics Artist of the Year. Proclaiming a love of ceramics since she was first introduced to a bag of clay, Rocheford was described by her teacher as gifted and prolific, with an eye for decorative rather than functional pieces.
Mixed media: Junzhu Zhang, Orange County School of the Arts
Junzhu Zhang writes that she was drawing before she spoke to communicate with her parents in a special way. As the mixed media winner, the Orange County School of the Arts senior boasts a vast artistic vocabulary, with a provocative portfolio that challenges viewers and features art ranging from sculpture to painting and drawing to fashion wear.
Sculpting and metalwork: Juhyun Park, Orange County School of the Arts
Juhyun Park, a senior at Orange County School of the Arts, may be the first person to take an assignment to create jewelry from wire and turn it into a stop motion video of staples, with an underlying message of the disposability of the individual in modern society, Oh, yeah, and she also does nice work with silver, brass on copper, as you might expect from the winner of the sculpting and metalwork specialty.
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May 02, 2021 at 08:52PM
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Artist of the Year for handcrafted visual arts: Yici Chen - OCRegister
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