This year, Delbarton has twelve artists in the Class of 2024 who displayed their full Sustained Investigations at the annual AP Art Exhibit in the FAC.

Meet our next student artist, Mark Sebastian '24:

"Throughout my life, I have found myself using art to express the world that I see around me," he started in his Artist Statement. "At a young age this took the form of me seeing something I found interesting, a funny-looking tree or a particularly large squirrel, and then drawing it as best as I could." As he got older, Mark began exploring a variety of mediums, expanding beyond the crayons and markers of his childhood to include oil paint and printmaking.

Mark explored the relationship between the living and the dead for his sustained investigation. Tombstones were central to his work, serving as significant physical markers of those who have passed away. "I find this topic intriguing because everyone has to face death in some capacity or another, however, the way that different people approach death varies greatly." Mark chose to use printmaking for this investigation, as it allowed him to experiment with various techniques, such as chiné colle and collage.

"As I have progressed through my work I have found myself trying to explore different ways that people remember the dead. My first works focused on tombstones themselves, but I soon moved to exploring obituaries, and now I am exploring the significance of flowers in the process of remembrance," he said.

We salute Mark and his fellow AP Art artists for their exceptional achievements in the arts at Delbarton this year!