Student Wins Gold in Art Competition

Each year, Derryfield students submit work to the Scholastic Art Awards, our country’s most competitive juried art competition for students in grades 7-12. This year, there were a total of 1,972 individual pieces and 81 portfolios of student artists from all over the state. Derryfield submitted 120 pieces and 42.5% received recognition. Five Derryfield students were selected as Gold Key winners, the highest honor.

 

Suprina Kabadkar won two Gold Key awards, in the categories of Digital Art and Art Portfolio. As a senior preparing to pursue a future in the visual arts, Kabadkar qualifies for a scholarship offered by the Dorothy Messenger Scholarship Fund. Their work will be reviewed along with other seniors pursuing art careers, and a recipient will be notified in the coming weeks. 

 

Artist Statement: My inspiration to create has always been music and cinema. I’m always inspired by amazing works of film, whether that be cinematography, acting or storytelling. But most importantly, I am deeply inspired by music. Listening to music is like diving into a world of pure feel. Something about the feel of music brings images to my mind. I can listen to a song and imagine a scenario it would exist within. I can give a song a setting, a story, or a purpose, all by listening. Music is one of the best arts to ever have been created. But, more important than music, is the feeling it brings. Feeling itself is my main inspiration to create. Music simply delivers it to me in its purest form. When I feel so strongly about something, I must express it. And my form of expression is visual art.

 

This is the reason why I want to go into the music video industry. Music videos are a combination of everything that inspires me. They are a combination of numerous artistic media, all working together for the song. Maybe they are illustrating the song's story, maybe they are matching the mood of the song with visuals, or maybe they are for pure entertainment. But whatever the singular purpose of the music video is, they all worship the music. And I feel like we all need more unrestricted feeling, since that itself is one of the best parts of being human.

 

Kabadkar describes their award-winning digital art painting, a 10” x 10” album cover created in 2022.

 

“This is an album cover illustration for the song “Secrets,” by Monsta X, from their One of a Kind album. I’ve drawn it as an album cover as if the song was a single. The song is a mix of R&B and jazz, which invoked this image for me. I set it in a bar at night, due to lyrics like “under the red light at our table” and “you're sipping from my glass of whiskey.” The illustration depicts a man playing with his whiskey glass next to his smoking cigar. I left the feeling of the image open to interpretation, since the song itself is called “Secrets.” I took my own references for this piece. It was the first time I’ve ever done such dramatic lighting without a direct reference. It definitely took some trial and error, but I’m quite proud of how it turned out. It was my first time drawing glass, ice, wood grain and smoke. I also painted the man’s nails like one of the members of the group. In total, this project took 34 hours.”

 

When asked about their future, Kabadkar replied,

 

“I plan to go to an art school for a bachelor of fine arts in illustration. Illustration is a great degree in the sense that it covers many aspects of art that you wouldn't learn from just a painting or animation degree. I will learn the basics like shape and form, but I will also get to learn more specialized aspects such as dynamic composition and storytelling through art. Illustration will also allow me to work specifically in the digital art realm, which is what I prefer to do. After that I may go on to a two-year specialty program or begin interning in music video production.”