Spotlight on Artist Emily Chu

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).

This week we feature an oil and pastel work made by Emily Chu from Hillsborough High School in Hillsborough, New Jersey, which was included in the 2019-20 AP Studio Art online exhibition. (You’ll find the exhibition halfway down the page, under the heading AP Exhibit.)

Here’s Emily’s statement on the work:

My piece is titled “warm & cozy” and it’s 24 by 22 inches done with oil pastel. The initial assignment behind this piece was to take a picture of an interior space and distort the colors to be more vibrant. I ended up settling on my bedroom with its unique IKEA lamp lighting. This was one of the first oil pastel pieces I had done since I was a little kid and doing a piece this big really enabled me to focus on the details and play with colors and mark making for the lighting. In fact, the part that took the longest wasn’t even the blankets or pillow, but the paper masking for the window. Because it was such a large piece, I just kept telling myself to do one section at a time, and before I knew it, what started as a simple school assignment turned into one of my favorite pieces in terms of color, texture, and contrast.”