Senior Eli Brandt worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to create his own art show, “Naturescapes,” which was shared with the public on Tuesday, May 16, in the art gallery outside of Roberts Theater.
In elementary school, Eli began creating paintings inspired by family vacations. “When I came to KO in sixth grade, I took all of the art classes I could because I always had ideas that I wanted to express creatively,” he said. He eventually gravitated towards printmaking, which was the primary medium of his art show.
As a culmination of his independent study in printmaking, Eli cultivated and presented a series of pieces he created during his high school career. They centered around the unique interactions between humanity and nature, and his personal experiences relating to environmental issues. “That’s a theme that I work with a lot in my artwork,” he said. “I’m really excited to have people experience that and contemplate that theme. I spent a lot of time writing artist statements about each piece, so I’m excited to share my ideas about that with the community.”
Working individually with creative arts teacher Katherine Nicholson, the two collaborated to create a curriculum and plan his art show. “The main goal was to combine techniques I had experimented with throughout the years to build more nuanced compositions,” Eli said.
Although this is a passion of his, printmaking can occasionally be a source of stress, as it can be difficult to fix a mistake when you have one shot to print something. “Sometimes it’s stressful or makes me anxious, but in the end it has taught me a lot of perseverance,” Eli said. “Working with art has helped me become less of a perfectionist, which has been a really important part of my development, especially as a learner and a person.”
After taking AP Art History in his junior year, Eli learned about various artists and their respective mediums. “It was cool to see a bunch of different techniques and take a little bit of inspiration from each person,” he said. “There are so many artists out there and everyone has a unique voice.”
He also mentioned that Mrs. Nicholson has been a huge inspiration to him after first introducing him to printmaking in seventh grade.
In addition to sharing his artwork on various social media platforms, Eli also has his own website and an Etsy account on which he sells his work. He mainly sells linoleum prints, but also creates other mixed media pieces.
Eli will be going on to study visual art and environmental science at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. We wish him the best of luck in the future!
