AP Art of the Week
Spotlight on Artist Kayla Lunde
Welcome to The Elective’s digital art museum, dedicated to the incredible work of AP Arts students. This week we feature a digital photograph made by Kayla Lunde from Carlmont High School in Belmont, CA.
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. In 2020, there is a lot to process and grapple with—and AP Art students have risen to the challenge. The work many of them submitted in their final portfolios is explicitly of the moment, from commentary on the covid-19 pandemic to the celebration of people of color to the nature of heroism in perilous times.
The work is often challenging and provocative but always insightful, inspiring, and expansive.
This week we feature a digital photograph made by Kayla Lunde from Carlmont High School in Belmont, CA.
Here’s Kayla’s statement on the work:
"My inquiry investigated how I could recreate the essence of poems through photography, focusing on the relationship between words and imagery. Poetry and photography, for me, help give shape to the indescribable feelings of life, such as loneliness and wonder. This inquiry allowed me to further understand how imagery can be created to relate to our imagination formed by written word. So much of the world is resistant to language, reminding us of the importance of communicating through imagery.
To accomplish this, I created photographic studies, like this portrait study. I used focused light, strong contrast, and reflections on glass to create dramatic mood. I shone beams of directed light from beneath glass and added makeup to create focus and contrast on lips. It evokes the kind of mood I hoped to capture for the works in my portfolio.
For one image, the poem “Acquainted with the Night” creates a sense of solitude when walking alone at night in the rain. I mirrored this feeling by highlighting the solitary umbrella through staging with a light shining on it and editing the trees to be orange to focus on the blue light of the umbrella.
For another, the poem “Crumbling is Not an Instant’s Act” conveys the sentiment that decay occurs gradually. The poem mentions rust as a form of decay. I conceptualized this by taking a photo of a rusted drainpipe. The original photo’s contrast inspired me to use split toning, helping to create an abstract mood. While the photo has literal aspects, it is not meant for literal interpretation."
Here are a few more pieces from Kayla’s portfolio:
Leaf—structure of stanzas mirrors image of falling leaf, imagery reflects the loneliness described.
There Will Come Soft Rains—rain on concrete represents nature’s softness vs humanity’s rigidness.
Acquainted with the Night—represents the dreamlike solitude of walking alone at night in the rain.
There’s a Certain Slant of Light—as light gives way to darkness, it leaves behind an oppressive mood.
Student statements are lightly edited for clarity.
