7 News Belize

Art That's Beyond Imagination
posted (September 24, 2024)
Artists from all walks of life, part of the Primary and Secondary Art Skills Training Project got a chance to showcase their work spanning back to almost a decade. The exhibition took place this morning at the Mexican Embassy and Institute in Belize City. I was there and got a chance to meet some of the artists and coordinators. Here's what I saw:

Beyond Imagination Art Extravaganza, carefully curated to display the artworks of over a decade's worth of paintings, drawings and sketches made by students under the instruction and guide of Fiona Hsu and her daughter Christine Huang - both very talented artists themselves. Huang says it is not only a proud moment for her but also the artists that have poured their souls out onto a canvas. It surely is art worth being seen.

Christine Huang, Art Instructor
"So this exhibition is showcasing the work of our students for the past ten years that we have been working in Belize and these are the works that they continued to do every through the pandemic so I hope to show everybody their passion and also for the youth that came to visit the exhibition for them to have a platform to exchange maybe an interest or hobby the techniques different things."

"In the beginning we started with primary school students and then like you said they grew up and continued on to learn their art so we provided courses for high school and now the high school students have graduated so we have from primary schools all the way to adults to teachers and past students who wish to become art teachers that they come back to the studio and ask for trainings for the visual arts CXC teacher or different kinds."

Huang and her mother started this Art skills training program years ago, and have over 75 students enrolled up to today. Students have the option of taking classes online or in the studio, but this initiative would not have been possible without the help of international friends.

Christine Huang, Art Instructor
"The program itself is sponsored by the foreign ministry of Taiwan through the Embassy of Taiwan in Belize but because of our work the Mexican institute they always have art competitions and that's how we started to collaborate together to train our students to do the art competitions in Mexico and eventually we become friends and this place is just the best place to host our exhibitions for many years yes."

And for students like 14 year old Isabella Waldman, it's a chance for her to display up to 5 of her pieces, mostly water color paintings and pencil drawings.

Isabella Waldman, Art student
"So I've actually been attending Ms Fiona's Art program for about three years now, but it's a real experience being there having a lot of other people who are there to try and get better also because they are passionate about art. And the process of creating it is genuinely a journey I'd say. You are there and you come to her like want to know more, so passionate about this thing but you don't know where to start. But planning a piece and actually starting it is absolutely nerve-racking because you don't know if you were going to mess it up you don't know if you need to start over you don't know if you are doing it correctly, but I think that that is the thing about art, you don't know what the end result is going to be about the journey and process of creating it I think it is one of the most rewarding things actually being proud of the end result is an experience for sure."

Then there are former students like St John Vianney graduate Jayra Young who enrolled in the program when it was in its early stages. It's a walk down memory lane for her, seeing all the art she made over the years as a student.

Jayra Young, Art Student
"So I have about 4 artworks here on display two of them were a part of my SBA, one of them was one that I did from a long time ago and then one was a peace poster that I won first place on a couple years ago in STD 6."

"So the ones for the SBA, those are what I did in third to fourth form that I sent for my CXC. Those ones my theme was life and death and so I did two that were basically, one was an anorexic woman and the other was a woman trapped inside an hourglass and it was just basically showing the fragility of life saying that at any time life can just go like that. The one behind the peace poster, the theme of it was peace so I just went and I thought about something, how peace should look in Belize and then the first one that was just a little crazy one I did when I was younger."

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