IMAGE GALLERY: Prestigous Art Works of Belmont Students at Habitat

If you ask Advance Placement in Studio Art Teacher Mark Milowsky which student has a grasp on artistic talent from the 15 students in his class whose works are currently hanging on the gallery walls of the in Belmont, he would say each one is posses artistic talent.

“These are the best of the best. This is probably one of the best classes of the past 10 years,” the teacher said.

At Saturday’s reception opening the exhibit that runs until Feb. 26, any admirer can see why would speak so highly of all of his students. The pieces mostly past assignments on food and other subjects include emotional retrospective self-portraits and organic subjects like pomegranates, vivid pink flesh of watermelons  and a visceral dead pig are striking.

More than 60 people came to see nearly 40 paintings with captivating abstracts and images that magnify the simplicity and complexity of the human body; black and white images of feet and an elongated back used as a canvas for one artist’s painting of a distressed human can hold the viewer to ponder the thoughts the artist was trying to provoke.

The students are eligible to enter the class through a selective process and review by the previous class’s artists.

The selectivity to discern Belmont’s high school students with artistic talent has won the students 10 gold, seven silver and two honorable mentions at the Massachusetts Scholastic Art Awards.