Students Thrive In Digital Media
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By Janee Law
jlaw@longislandergroup.com
When Joseph Garetano learned that his digital media piece took first place in the Suffolk County Art Leaders Association All County & Scholarship Show he said he was surprised.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to win or not,” Garetano said. “It’s really cool to have won in something I like to do so it means a lot.”
Garetano, a junior at Huntington High School, was one of four from the school selected for the All-County exhibit, which was on display at Babylon’s Old Town Hall until Feb. 13.
Garetano work titled “Nature’s Illuminated” features an image of a bird, flowers, a blue sky affixed inside a light bulb.
“Joseph’s work is really exceptional,” digital art teacher Kasmira Mohanty said. “He’s wide open to all of the experiences and it really comes through in his artwork because he’s willing to play with things and he’s definitely willing to make mistakes and not take it too hard and learn from it. Every time he does something, it keeps getting better and better.”
His work was crafted for a surrealism project, where students selected a set of images to craft a piece.
“I decided to grab some pictures that I felt will work really well together and I put them together into something that I thought looked really good,” Garetano, 16, of Huntington, said.
His mission with the piece is to reveal the imbalance between electricity and nature.
Other students selected to compete included seniors Michael Bradford and Emma Franznick, and junior Roger Villatoro.
The annual event is held in partnership with the Babylon Citizens Council on the Arts, and draws top student-artists who compete in the county event or scholarship show.
For the county event, students across the county submitted their artwork in categories ranging from drawing, painting, 3D and photography to mixed media, digital media and scholarship divisions.
At a Feb. 3 reception, Bradford’s work went up against that of 13 others in the scholarship division, for which he submitted three untitled digital media works. Franznick, Garetano and Villatoro competed in a field of 47 in the All-County section.
Along with Garetano’s win, Franznick also received an honorable mention award.
Mohanty selected the four students for the exhibit and said she’s very proud to be able to work with these young artists.
“A lot of my students are exceptionally talented,” she said. “I’m just really proud that they’re willing to put themselves out there because it’s very scary to show your work outside of a classroom.”
