Annual Exhibit Showcases West Deptford Students' Art

It’s unmistakable: The bold, black grid and blocks of color can only be Piet Mondrian.

Only this isn’t a 90-year-old De Stijl composition by the Dutch painter hanging in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan—this is a piece by an elementary school student hanging in the .

Art class, as it turns out, has come a long way.

For West Deptford art teachers Gina Hicks and Kate Mathiesen, the annual art show—this year, featuring more than 400 pieces by students from kindergarten through fourth grade—is a way of showing the community just that.

“It’s important for them to see what our kids can do,” Hicks said.

What they can do spans mediums and genres—whether kindergartners taking on Picasso or older students assembling six-foot-tall mosaics of color, the display showcases the full spectrum of what’s happening in art classes.

Going back to Mondrian, Hicks said breaking down complex works into basic pieces—shapes, forms, colors—make them accessible even to the youngest students.

“They know they can do that,” she said. “Art is born within them.”

Hicks added that exposing kids to works like Picasso’s cubism gets them thinking about what’s possible beyond the everyday.

“It doesn’t have to look like the real thing,” Hicks said.

Mathiesen said it extends beyond that, to making students see that not everything is black-and-white, right-and-wrong when it comes to learning, and that art isn’t about photocopying the world.

“I told them, ‘Perfect is boring’," she said.

And by doing all that, Mathiesen and Hicks said they’re trying to impress upon their students that it’s OK to experiment, to try new things and figure out what works and what doesn’t and not be afraid of failure.

“These lessons are lifelong lessons,” Hicks said.

At the same time they’re expanding their students’ concept of what art can be, Mathiesen and Hicks are teaching respect, both for art and culture, and for one another. Though sometimes pictures may seem strange or absurd, the teachers said one thing is made clear.

“They don’t laugh at someone else’s art,” Hicks said of her students.

It doesn’t end at the conclusion of art class, either, the two teachers said. Students make connections between art and other subjects—math, especially—and the concepts intersect and help strengthen the students’ abilities across their classes, Mathiesen said.

But what really shows them how much their students take to the ideas they’re bringing out in the classroom, Hicks and Mathiesen said, is when students go home and continue to create on their own—and sometimes bring those treasures back to the classroom.

“Certain things resonate,” Mathiesen said.

The West Deptford elementary school art show, part of national Youth Art Month, runs through the end of March at the West Deptford Free Public Library.