Student Art Adorns Walls of Monroe Center in Public Exhibit

The finest student art the Hoboken public school district has to offer was on display Tuesday evening at the Monroe Center for the Arts. Over 150 students from all five Hoboken public schools presented their art work, including over a dozen Hoboken High students who are participating in the International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement academic programs.

This is the sixth annual exhibit, which was created to feature the work of the IB art students. Michel Ising, the Hoboken High art teacher who coordinates the IB program, said that in recent years the exhibit expanded to include the school's other art and photography students, and that this year the other four public Hoboken schools participated. Student art from the Calabro, Connors and Wallace elementary schools plus the Brandt middle school lined the hallway leading into the Monroe Center's third floor exhibition room where the high schoolers displayed their work.

“The show gets bigger every year,” Ising said.

The exhibit celebrates the final exam for the Hoboken High IB and AP students. This is the only year the two programs have been offered simultaneously. The school district will replace the IB program with the new AP program beginning next year.

Both programs place students on a track to earn college credit while still in high school. Whereas the IB program involves students earning a special degree, the AP allows them to choose which subjects they want to focus on while trying for the college credit.

Ising said the IB and AP students had to choose a theme for their collection in the beginning of the year and write a mission statement. They then spent the entire school year creating their pieces, which were judged this afternoon by representatives from the larger IB umbrella.

Adriana Umana, who is the lone AP qualifying senior this year, presented almost hall a wall worth of canvas and paper art pieces made with pencils and acrylic and oil paint.

“They're about human emotion represented through women,” Umana said. Umana said many of her subjects are “forgotten people” on the outer edges of polite society.

, an IB senior, took inspiration for her acrylic and glossy tempera painted works from living in a city.

“It's an expression of the liveliness of a big city,” she said. “That's why I used so many bright colors.”

Mayor Dawn Zimmer attended the exhibit, as did Superintendent Mark Toback, Assistant Superintendent Miguel Hernandez, Hoboken High Principal Noreen Lazariuk, Vice Principal Robin Piccapietra, and Board of Education Trustees Peter Biancamano, Leon Gold, Francis Rhodes-Kearns, Rose Marie Markle, Ruth McAllister and Irene Sobolov.

Though the exhibit was one night only, Ising said that several of the art pieces will be moved and displayed inside City Hall.