Each year, a handpicked number of Kent School students participate in the Scholastic Art Awards, sending in artwork on a wide range of mediums. These pieces are first sent off to Hartford, where they are evaluated and recognized at the Regional Level. Then, a select few go on to be judged at Nationals. This year, seniors Pamela Javran ’19 and Matthew Zhou ’19 received medals at the national level.

Ms. Lynch, head of the Arts Department says, “with the grand number of participants from all the schools across the state, simply getting recognized is a big deal. The fact that Kent is represented by these two young artists nationally is remarkable.”

Pamela Javran is a Kent student with a long history of photography, and she has already amassed a long list of accolades. She first received state recognition for her overall photography portfolio. Three of its four works received gold keys, the highest award at the state level, and the last piece won an honorable mention. Later she earned national medals: a gold medal for “Out at Sunrise” and a silver medal for “In Between”.

Her photograph “Out at Sunrise” was taken in the Pangrango National Park in Indonesia, and documents a fisherman starting his day on the Situ Gunung River. “In Between,” a macro shot of an ant crossing two pebbles, “was a lucky photo I took one day in front of my house,” explains Javran.

Kent’s second winner, Matthew Zhou, first received a gold key at the state level for “Fog at Kent,” and the work later earned him a national silver medal. Zhou remarks on this award by recounting, “while I’ve loved photography as a hobby since primary school, I really started taking photos and working on my skills in earnest when I came to Kent. I was really inspired by Kent’s natural beauty, and it’s been a big influence on my work, and this time was no different.”

“Fog at Kent” is a long-exposure shot that depicts the white fog that blankets the Housatonic, a sight many of us at Kent are familiar with, and emphasizes both its heaviness and slowness. Zhou took the shot “at Case Point during advisory period on a rainy day,” he explains. “I was walking past and I loved how the fog was sitting literally right on top of the river. It was like a blanket.”

These two students both intend to continue to pursue photography as part of their time left at Kent, and as Ms. Lynch says, “translate the beauty of the world to wider and wider audiences.”