Sophomore Daphne Davenport’s art will advance to state again April 27 at the Texas Art Education Association’s Visual Art Scholastic Event (VASE).
“I’m happy I advanced,” Davenport said. “Going to state is fun. The gold seal gallery walk is always dope to walk through and full of sick stuff, but there are also workshops to do and generally friendly people.”
Davenport said her art piece was about the continuation of change and the temporal nature of the people and things we surround ourselves with. The clouds carried a lot of meaning because they represent memories of past people and experiences.
“The inspiration was very simple,” Davenport said. “I wanted to convey the complex and ever changing shapes of clouds and use it for symbolism. It’s painted in the style of surrealism. It’s my favorite genre of art because it’s raw and usually unconventional.”
Davenport created the painting on a canvas with acrylic paint.
“She’s amazing,” art teacher Judith Brown said. “One of the things I think makes her piece really impactful is how large it is.”
Davenport worked on her piece for four months with limited communication due to
Brown being on maternity leave. This year, only students who had participated in VASE in previous years were asked to compete again with the exception of 2 seniors who won’t get this opportunity.
“Communication and keeping [Brown] up to date with progress photos was weird because we quite literally could not agree on how it should be coordinated,” Davenport said.
There were 1,076 works of art entered into the contest. Out of all of those, only 76 made it to state. Davenport was 1 out of 24 in her division to make it to state.
“The really cool thing about Daphne is she did it all on her own,” Brown said. “She created the butterfly from a picture she took, and she did it all at her house. She’s mind blowing.”
