The University Of Utah: Homecoming Art Competition Winner

Press release from The University of Utah - Announcements:

November 16, 2021

By Janice Darko, founder, Black and Art Dental Students Association, School of Dentistry, class of 2023

I am extremely honored to have been chosen as the winner and for placing 1st in the overall creativity, spirit, and skill in the 2021 Homecoming Art Competition for Student Organizations at University of Utah. This has provided the Black and Art Dental Students Association (BDSA) club an opportunity to build more community. I founded the BDSA in March of 2021 to recognize undiscovered artists, like myself, and to have fun during Homecoming week in October 2021.

The art piece was my first painting, so my idea was to try and represent myself, the U’s spirit, and the BDSA club as much as I could. I painted an African lady holding a tooth and the U (picture on the right). The “African lady” represents myself, the first black female dental student at the School of Dentistry, the tooth represents the work that we do as dental students in helping others with their dental health in the community, and the U represents my love for University of Utah, for giving me the opportunity to be trained as a future black female dentist.

This opportunity has inspired me to continue to discover my artistic side and to make more art pieces to showcase, and to merge art with dentistry in an effort to raise awareness in promoting oral health equity among People of Color. Furthermore, being the winner in this homecoming art contest has motivated me and hopefully others as well to participate in future art competitions, because I didn’t know I was going to be the winner, but I am glad I participated.

The BDSA club is getting closer to achieving its goal of gaining publicity by becoming more visible to more artists, art galleries, and introducing people from other parts of the U campus to the artistic part of science. I believe we can communicate with other people that way because it’s about sharing the way we experience the world through art.

If you’d like to donate to the Black and Art Dental Student Association, please write to blackandartdsa@gmail.com or Venmo directly to Janice-Darko.

This press release was produced by The University of Utah - Announcements. The views expressed here are the author’s own.