A John F. Kennedy High School senior is earning recognition on a regional stage after her artwork was selected for a prestigious museum exhibition showcasing some of Long Island’s top young talent.
Tiffany Yam’s piece debuted in late March as part of Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at the Heckscher Museum of Art, the only juried exhibition on Long Island that offers high school students the opportunity to display their work in a professional museum setting.
Yam was among 87 students selected from 456 submissions representing 69 high schools across Nassau and Suffolk counties. Participants were tasked with creating original works inspired by pieces from the museum’s permanent collection.
“Celebrating its 30th anniversary, Long Island’s Best has been a hallmark of the Museum’s educational programming for three decades, showcasing the outstanding work of over 2,000 high school students from across Long Island,” the museum said in a statement. “What began as an annual exhibition of outstanding student work has become a lasting tradition — one that recognizes excellence while nurturing the next generation of creative thinkers. Long Island’s Best continues to be the only juried exhibition for Long Island high school students that provides the opportunity to exhibit in a museum.”
In addition to being chosen for the exhibition, Yam received the Renzo & Lynette Bianchi Scholarship Award and was recognized during an awards ceremony held March 29. She is a senior in Vanessa Albaneze’s Advanced Placement Drawing class at Kennedy High School.
Her artwork, titled “Encased,” was inspired by Katinka Mann’s piece “Navy,” and explores themes of contrast and perception.
“My piece, ‘Encased,’ was inspired by Katinka Mann’s ‘Navy,’” Yam said. “Mann’s exploration of depth perception and dimensionality inspired me to create a similar work centered around three-dimensional shapes. I aimed to capture the feeling of a dark and foreboding shell hiding a beautiful and inviting interior — a bullet case concealing a red lipstick.”
Yam created the piece by photographing a bullet lipstick casing and the lipstick itself, then digitally layering and splicing the images before rendering the final composition on illustration board using colored pencils.
“Using that reference image, I created an image on an illustration board with colored pencils,” she said. “The image explores contrasting sensory phenomena like cold versus warmth and softness versus hardness, the contrasting objects relative to human versus weapon.”
Yam’s work will remain on display at the Heckscher Museum through May 5.
She is also among 27 students selected to have their work featured at the Firefly Gallery from May 7 to 20. An opening reception is scheduled for May 8 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Earlier this school year, Yam earned a Gold Key in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for her piece “Congratulations,” and a Silver Key for her self-portrait, “Flickers.”
