Beverly Hills High School graduate Prince Abrahams, class of 2020, has been featured in the 2020 College Board AP Art and Design Digital Exhibit. The exhibit highlights 51 international high school artists who submitted their artwork to the 2020 AP Art and Design exam. In the midst of a global pandemic, AP Art and Design students worked with diverse ideas, materials, and processes to create works of art that represent the resilience and perseverance of high school students worldwide.
“We are proud of our students and the artwork they have created,” said Rebecca Stone-Danahy, Director of AP Art and Design. “The AP Art and Design exhibit showcases the course focus on inquiry and the resulting individual student responses to the world around them. This is especially critical as students navigate the changing landscape of our contemporary times.”
Abrahams’ painting chosen by the AP Art and Design Board is titled “Adam and Eve,” inspired by the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis.
“My entire concentration was deeply rooted in the concepts that were available in the Bible from Adam and Eve to the creation of Adam to Noah’s Ark,” Abrahams said in a video statement. “A lot of those concepts were embedded in my art, but for this specific piece, I wanted to play with the idea of gender, especially gender nonconformity and androgyny. So, I wanted to play with the form specifically.”
This piece sets out to answer a question posed by Abrahams: how can I illustrate the structure of religion using the human form?
“I wanted you to see that there’s a female leg or a male arm, but they all intertwine and mesh into one form. And then on top of it, I superimposed the androgyny symbol, which means it’s all encompassing of both genders. It’s expressive without hindrance.”
During the AP Art and Design Exam adjudication, over 400 readers graded student portfolios submitted for review. The 51 students selected for the AP Art and Design Digital Exhibit represent high-quality examples of the Sustained Investigation and Selected Works sections of the portfolio. The digital exhibit is designed to showcase the rigor and excellence of the AP Art and Design portfolio and be used as an exemplar teaching tool shared with AP art and design students around the world. The AP Art and Design program was founded in 1972, and as of 1978, 4500 students had completed portfolios for submission to the program. Today, over 60,000 students participate annually.
To view the 2020 College Board AP Art and Design Digital exhibit, visit https://2020artanddesignexhibit.collegeboard.org/2020-digital-exhibit.
