Von Auersperg Gallery Hosts Student Art Exhibition

On March 28, the Von Auersperg Gallery opened on the first floor of the Hess Center for its annual student art and photography exhibition. The gallery features work from various Deerfield art courses, including AP Drawing and Painting, AP Photography, and Post AP Studio Art.

“We collaborate with Mr. Payne, Mr. Trelease, Mr. Abreu, and Ms. Bicknell to create a show that shows the scope of the visual arts program at Deerfield,” said Art Teacher Mercedes Taylor, adding, “The vision is to try to represent the work that students do in our different arts courses.”

The gallery includes a wide range of media and subjects, from oil paintings by Ryan Bai ’26 to collage work by Matthew Stultz ’25. On the front wall, students in the Post AP Studio Art class used toothbrushes to create several landscape pieces. “I think every piece surprises me because I know where the students started,” said Ms. Taylor. “I’ve seen the process, and then I see the final result, and it’s amazing.”

Yong Ding ’27, a student in AP Drawing and Painting, contributed several oil paintings to the exhibition, which were a part of his AP portfolio titled “Sustained Investigation.” His body of work centers around water and explores its relationship with the human world from multiple angles. “Since I’m a swimmer, this piece focuses on my experience underwater—how it represents not only freedom, but also danger,” Ding said, referring to one painting that captures him submerged underwater. Another of Ding’s works expands on the theme by focusing on environmental concerns, depicting a council of fish seated across from humans at a conference table. “It’s meant to show the fish proposing environmental changes to humans,” Ding said. “I want the audience walking away thinking about the way we treat their habitat.”

In addition to visual art, the gallery showcases student photography, offering a different medium of expression. “Photography captures a moment that will never be there again,” said AP Photography student Abdullah Ali ’25. “For example, there’s a photograph of my grandfather in my house in Jordan, and he’s smiling... Growing up seeing him smiling in that photograph, knowing he was my grandfather, I was still able to experience love from him,” she added.

Ali’s collection of photographs draws inspiration from Ozymandias, a poem by Percy Shelley, and explores the impermanence of matter, identity, and the ceaseless flow of time. “This king [Ozymandias] thought that he would last forever, and yet everything is eroded with time,” he explained. Through a combination of spontaneous moments and intentional composition, Ali invited viewers on a visual journey symbolizing the theme of transformation. “Change is the only thing that is permanent,” he reflected.