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Student On Short List Of Art Contest

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  • Student On Short List Of Art Contest

    STUDENT ON SHORT LIST OF ART CONTEST
    By Angela Hokanson

    Glendale News Press
    http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/20 08/03/11/education/gnp-visual11.txt
    March 11 2008
    CA

    Competition seeks to cultivate, inspire youngsters through education
    and scholarships.

    Artist Caroline Sirounian with her painting "Misterious" at Glendale
    High School Monday. (Alex Collins/News-Press)

    Caroline Sirounian's favorite thing to paint is an interesting
    personality. Not a person or a figure, necessarily, but the character
    behind that person, the qualities that make up who they are.

    The results of her efforts are often surrealistic scenes, with
    humanlike figures morphing into animals and other creatures.

    "I've always been interested in drawing people and capturing their
    personalities," explained Caroline, a 17-year-old senior at Glendale
    High School.

    Her artistic talents have been recognized by the Music Center of
    Los Angeles, which in late February named Caroline as one of 30
    semifinalists in the 2008 Music Center Spotlight Awards Visual Arts
    competition.

    The competition seeks to cultivate young artists through arts education
    and arts scholarships. Nearly 1,000 high school students from around
    Southern California submitted two-dimensional artwork to this year's
    visual arts competition, according to the Music Center.

    This weekend, Caroline's work, and that of each of the semifinalists,
    will be on display at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena.

    And the top two winners from among the semifinalists will be announced
    in late April at an awards gala in Los Angeles.

    Caroline has been drawing as long as she can remember. advertisement

    As a child, she would watch television and then re-create images she
    saw on paper using pencil and markers.

    As she got older, she tried to imitate works of art she saw in history
    books. When she was 11, she started taking twice-weekly art classes
    at Magic Brush Art Studio in Glendale, lessons that helped her develop
    her evolving artistic talents, she said.

    There, under the guidance of art instructor Edward Manukyan, she was
    encouraged to create whatever came to her. Today, it's her imagination
    that reigns when she is doing a painting or a drawing, Caroline said.

    "I have a really big imagination and that's about 99% of what I do,"
    she said. She enjoys drawing with pencil, because with that tool,
    the artist has to be precise and every error shows, she said.

    "With a pencil you have a really fine tip, and every stroke makes a
    difference," she said.

    She also enjoys working with oil paints, for the way that the paint
    feels on the brush, she said.

    The painting that Caroline submitted to the first round of the Music
    Center's competition was one called "Enigma," which she did in Scarlett
    Lowe's commercial/multimedia design class at Glendale High.

    That painting shows Caroline's face, with overlapping images of
    dragons, unicorns, lions and trees.

    The symbols are supposed to be enigmatic, Caroline said, and represent
    different facets of her identity.

    The background of the portrait, which consists of brightly colored
    circles, represents her changing moods, Caroline said.

    Caroline has the technical skill to execute her ideas and the
    creativity to develop unique works, said Lowe, who encouraged her to
    apply to the Music Center's competition.

    "She has the skill to express what she wants to express," Lowe said.

    Lowe has taught art for 15 years, and said Caroline may be the most
    talented student she's had in all that time.

    "She's able to take what she feels inside and express it," Lowe said.

    Caroline plans to study art in college; she is applying to the Florence
    Academy of Art, which has campuses in Italy and Sweden.
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