The Todt Hill-Westerleigh Library is currently displaying original art by students at Wagner High School. The artwork on display includes colorfully surrealist backgrounds, surrealist black-and-white images and black-and-white still lives. The artwork is exhibited on the Todt Hill Westerleigh Library lobby level for the public to enjoy.

Below the students share their thoughts about their work:

Joanna Del Priore
My Surrealism painting features a New York City skyline with a twist. Instead of buildings I decided to replace them with boxes of popcorn. I also included two prominent symbols of New York City, the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island ferry. It may look strange, but I thought it would be fun to add a painting of a ribcage on an easel. I worked very hard on my painting and hope all that see it will enjoy it.

Minh Dang
The part of this project that I like was that we could choose our own pictures. Art should always be about expressing yourself. I like the freedom of choice in this project since we could put the objects wherever we wanted (within rules of composition).

Sabrina Gallagher
The medium for this project was white and dark charcoal on paper. This original composition is composed of a tiger climbing out of a canvas, a table talking on the phone and two windows that show cityscapes of Brooklyn and New York City. There is a happy face in the New York window and a golfer is on top of one building. In the Brooklyn window I drew a cat under the bridge and a bell phone on the top that coils down the bridge. I am on the school's golfing team and that is why I put him on the building.

Lyla Bellamy
Originally I thought charcoal would be a difficult medium to work with. It was a bit tedious to blend in the beginning, but as time went on it became easier. My original composition was to have all my items coming out of the suitcase. After placing everything onto paper I realized that it would not work with the items I chose. After moving things I was happier with the composition and was able to create the final picture that I had in mind. The hardest part was actually incorporating the background into my drawing. I like to travel and that is why I put all my personal objects within the suitcase.

Lauren Ibrahim
Working with charcoal was not too difficult; however I was looking forward to creating this project in ink. Objects in this drawing remind me of my great childhood. I included the teddy bear to show youth and childish games. The figure skater shows that I am a figure skater (for the past seven years). Other objects I included such as the jewelry box and rose were included just because I like those things. The staircase was added because I thought the background was pretty dull and helped with the overall composition. The addition of Saturn was my friend's idea to make it dream-like. I also added the hourglass to symbolize how time flies as I was once a little kid and now I am a 16-year-old who can figure skate and have a 95 average in school.

Ze Jun Chen
The drawing and shading for this project took a lot of time. I used charcoal pencil which I hated because it took so much time and kept on smudging. My masterpiece came out better than I expected because my shading improved as I applied more of it. The people in this drawing were difficult, but my clock came out the best because my teacher gave me specific instructions to follow.

Minh Dang
The part of this project that I like was that we could choose our own pictures. Art should always be about expressing yourself. I like the freedom of choice in this project since we could put the objects wherever we wanted (within rules of composition).

Sabrina Gallagher
The medium for this project was white and dark charcoal on paper. This original composition is composed of a tiger climbing out of a canvas, a table talking on the phone and two windows that show cityscapes of Brooklyn and New York City. There is a happy face in the New York window and a golfer is on top of one building. In the Brooklyn window, I drew a cat under the bridge and a bell phone on the top that coils down the bridge. I am on the school's golfing team and that is why I put the golfer on the building.

Lyla Bellamy
Originally I thought charcoal would be a difficult medium to work with. It was a bit tedious to blend in the beginning, but as time went on it became easier. My original composition was to have all my items coming out of the suitcase. After placing everything onto paper, I realized that it would not work with the items I chose. After moving things, I was happier with the composition and was able to create the final picture that I had in mind. The hardest part was actually incorporating the background into my drawing. I like to travel and that is why I put all my personal objects within the suitcase.

Lauren Ann Dimaya
Charcoal was a medium that I was completely unfamiliar with before I began this project. To me, it can be very messy to handle and frustrating in that way. I did find the white charcoal pencil useful for highlighted areas. In my original idea, I had items in only one area which created little perspective. After rearranging the objects and changing their sizes, it turned out better than I expected. Although I feel that I could have done a better job, I am glad to be finished with the charcoal project and am content with the decent outcome.

Ariel Lontoc
My original composition was very different from the final piece. Originally the ukulele was supposed to be the biggest object, but I found that it was not the most important and therefore took up too much room. In the end I was satisfied with the final composition. I believe that this piece exemplifies my original idea and shows what I wanted to portray overall. The piece tells the observer things about me and my life.

Maggie Shen
When I first began this project I had a lot of ideas, but no idea what to do with them. After a while, most things got eliminated and a picture appeared in my mind. After many drafts I finished my final composition. What came out was similar to what I originally imagined, but with some differences. For example, I expected my drawing to have some food aspects. I had a lot of trouble deciding what items to use and how to incorporate them in a composition together.

Charcoal is one of my favorite art mediums to use. I love charcoal because of the freedom it allows. The biggest challenge in this project was creating a shade in the background. I did not leave any blank areas.

Daniella Blyakhman
For my surrealism project, I had tried to embody aspects of my life that I enjoy doing and things I know I have to do in order to accomplish everything I want for my future. I enjoyed using black and white charcoal because I love how it helped me emphasize how everything comes in a full circle. I think I demonstrated a universal controversy of many young adults who are finally maturing and realizing that working hard is necessary.

In my original composition, I felt I just placed objects that describe my personality and my life on a paper without them relating to each other. My original idea did not focus on showing a full circle and how everything comes around to form a relationship. I think that the charcoal helped with this connection. I really liked blending the colors together, yet at the same time showing contrasts in the very dark and light spaces.

Adam Greenstein
My art project is all about me and who I think I am. The sports equipment shows my love for sports. The sheep and fence show that I love to sleep. Other items like the TV, fishing rod and car show my other likes. I go fishing a lot and I like cars.