To add some color to the  blank wall outside the English classrooms, the Visual Arts Department installed nine banners of artwork created by last year’s Senior Art Award recipients on the wall outside of Rugby.

The pieces of art won  awards in photography, drawing, video and three-dimensional art.

One of the banners features an acrylic painting by Anders Villalta ’12, who won the Excellence in Visual Arts award last spring at the all school awards assembly. Villata’s painting features the hands of two people reaching out to each other with only a view of the hands and the shoes of the people.

The Visual Arts Department had been approached previously to do a mural on the blank wall outside Rugby, but the idea of banners, suggested by one of last year’s senior prefects, David Olodort ’12, was more appealing to the department.

“That was a brilliant suggestion,” Department Head Cheri Gaulke said. “We decided as a department that it would be a great way to showcase our senior art award recipients.”

The award-winning pieces of art, all in different media, were then photographed and transferred into banners.

“I don’t really find them a distraction,” Cindy Oh ’13 said. “I love seeing any art that my peers make since they are all pretty talented.”

New banners will be made next spring after the new Senior Art Award recipients have been announced. Gaulke said that the plan is to update the banners annually with each year’s awards winners.