“suffocation”

One of Lake Shore’s premier artists, Julian Smith, senior at Lake Shore High School, won four Gold Keys in the Scholastic Art & Writing Competition this month.

Smith has spent his life using his creative gifts through not only entertaining but also conveying many people’s, including his own, hardships and struggles. 

Smith said, “My portfolio was about transgender hardships and my individual pieces were about transgender issues as well as an identity crisis. My mixed media pieces were about the Iranian crisis happening against women.”

Smith has recently broadened his talent through new endeavors in the competitive art world. Smith submitted his portfolio through the Regional Scholastic Art & Writing competition.

Smith said, “I won four Gold Keys, three honorable mentions and my portfolio got an honorable mention. Two gold keys in painting, one gold key in photography, and another gold key in mixed media.”

Due to this being one of the first competitions, he’s competed in he said, “I felt very accomplished and thought back to how I made it to this point. Before I never thought I could achieve such things with my art talent but my family and friends around me encouraged me and supported me. My teachers especially, who also supported me during this year and taught me well.”

Less than 7% of all submissions are able to bring home Gold Keys in this competition. Yet, Smith has continued to show great gratitude for his achievements and competitors.

Smith said, “Everyone who competed was extremely talented and I really enjoyed the competition. It feels great to see art getting such recognition that it has always been deserving of. I think art should be taken more seriously by high schools especially and taken more seriously by students who want to take an art career path. I believe art changes and inspires the world to make history just the same as every other career path and that needs to be made notice of in pre-college education.”

If you’d like to see Smith and many others’ work the huge exhibition is open for viewing until March first at the Center for Creative Studies Walter B. Ford Building and Manoogian Resource. To see the Gold Key winners’ work head to the library at the Center for Creative Studies.