Spotlight on Artist Sydney Turner

Welcome to The Elective’s digital art museum, dedicated to the incredible work of AP Arts students. Each week we highlight a work or series created in one of the AP Arts concentrations—AP 2-D Art and Design, 3-D Art and Design, and AP Drawing (the AP Program also offers Art History and Music Theory)—as well as a statement from the artist (and, occasionally, their teacher).

From the first cave paintings to contemporary breakthroughs in virtually reality, art, in all its forms, has been a crucial way for people to process, make sense of, comment on, and grapple with the world around them. After more than a year of life in a pandemic, AP Art students have risen to the challenge of processing and making sense of the challenges—and opportunities—that have come from this perilous time. The work they submitted in their final portfolios is explicitly of the moment. It’s often challenging and provocative, but always insightful, inspiring, and expansive.

This week we feature a painting made by Sydney Turner from Northern Guilford High School in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Here’s Sydney’s statement on the work:

"'A Small Edris Family Gathering'—Background with acrylic paint, sketched out the aliens on sketchbook paper, painted the aliens with acrylic paint, did details with posca paint pens, cut the aliens out, figured out placement on canvas, then Modge Podged to attach the painted paper on the canvas, Mod Podge was also used as a finish on the entire painting.

"I created a fictional planet using my own ideas and concepts for my sustained investigation. I was inspired by my interest in science fiction, specifically the concept of other planets and intelligent life outside of our solar system. For this selected piece I wanted to illustrate the concept that numbers in normalcy can differ in space and time; the idea that a certain number is seen as large on earth but could be seen as small on another planet fascinates me. I wanted the title A Small Erdis Family Gathering  to seem like a contradiction when comparing it to the crowded piece, to convey how the concept of a “normal number” can be completely different depending on the time, place and space. From the beginning of my concentration I knew I wanted to try and come up with everything myself. The first thing I decided is that I was going to name the Planet Daetraina (a mix of syllables from different words is how I came up with most of the names.) I then created the main intelligent species on Daetraina; The Erdises (pictured in work.) I made the Erdis a highly intelligent but simple creature, the Erdises have no mouth, ears, or nose, only eyes and they communicate telepathically. They are genderless and sexless creatures that are created by plants that are also biologically immortal. Their most notable quality is that they have an abundance of emotional intelligence which keeps the species at complete peace within themselves."

Here’s Sydney’s teacher Mary Ann Vespa on Sydney’s work:

“Some students need a great deal of guidance and supervision while developing their AP Art portfolios, but Sydney is one of those students where I needed to sit back and watch her investigation develop. The best support I could be for Sydney was to simply be her cheerleader. She had an idea and she ran with it. Each new piece fed off of the last one, and her concentration blossomed. Sydney wasn’t afraid to take risks and try new things. Her work is original, creative, unique, and as her art teacher, I couldn’t ask for anything more. I am so proud of Sydney!”

And here are a few other works from Sydney’s portfolio:

Student and teacher statements are lightly edited for length and clarity.