Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Statement: “SHS Nighthawks” is a direct allusion to Edward Hopper’s Modernist artwork “Nighthawks,” which communicates the anxiety and alienation of the time; in parodying “Nighthawks” and its nightly, reclusive atmosphere, I direct its themes toward Saratoga High School and its isolating, competitive academic life. In my work, the warm, fluorescent yellow interior of the school’s Student Center emanates light and serves as an oasis to its inhabitants, with its warmth atmospherically isolated from the rest of the cool, blue and green night. The interior maintains a solitary and artificial environment, however: the bar scene of Hopper’s “Nighthawks” has been replaced with a bare, silent academic environment with a singular bookshelf.
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