Seniors Morgan Hickman, Sydney Crawford and Suhyun Park were acclaimed at the Johnson County Community College Shooting Stars Visual Arts Finalist Exhibit. The event took place at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art March 25 and was hosted by KMBC First Alert Chief Meteorologist Bryan Busby. Every category of art was presented to the crowd while each of the 115 finalists individually stood below the screen of their projects and auditions.

They each had a different style of art that was entered and all captured the true meaning of what is dear to them.

Hickman submitted a photograph she titled “Alley 2”. The photograph was meant to reflect on a person’s, in this case, senior Emma Cosner’s, interaction with the environment, according to Hickman. The title, however, had no other meaning than the fact that it was in an alley. Overall, she is drawn to photography because it is the right happy medium in art. She loves how it captures a moment at that exact time. Hickman is excited to be featured in this exhibit and is happy to be part of such a program.

“It’s insane to me that my art will actually be on display at a museum,” Hickman said, “It’s so exciting.

Crawford, on the other hand, took a different approach to art. She created a painting titled “Stella.” She was inspired by friend and other senior Stella Lilek.

“I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to paint and I particularly liked Stella’s ring and so I asked her to pose with her hands on her face,” Crawford said.

Art has always been a passion of hers and Crawford can remember her earliest memories being of fingerpainting and wandering the Nelson with her mom. She likes the freeness of art and how the limit is the person’s own creativity. On being featured at the exhibit, Crawford is so excited and describes it as surreal.

“It always catches me off guard to see my work hanging in Sion’s hallways, so this is even more exciting,” Crawford said.

Suhyun Park created sculptures titled “Phobia” shows the difficulty that she had when she first arrived in the United States. When she came over, she was in 7th grade and she was very scared due to the big language barrier.

“It was scary and awkward and I felt like people were staring at me because I don’t speak English at all,” Park said.

She described her sculptures in detail saying that the person in the corner represents herself at school when she first came, the faces in the locker represent people she met and the floor is made out to be an English test that has an “F” on it. Park loves art because she can express better than writing.

“I was so surprised and I didn’t know that I would win first place,” Park said. “When the announcer called my name at the Gala show, I thought I was dreaming.”

Before the show concluded, all of the scholarship winners and finalist stood on stage as confetti cannons fired.

All three girls gave their art pieces a true meaning of either something they experienced or they just love or felt passionate about. Art is a hobby that all girls love to do and like how they can express what they feel in another way besides words. This exhibit recognized them for what they did to represent something special.