2025 MAEA Recognitions Exhibit

Davis Publications Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Wayland High School

Student Name: Annabelle Roberts
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece represents how when I experience something bad, I try to cover it up with humor. Set in my childhood bed, with “ghouls” surrounding me, this piece is inspired by my experience of night terrors and how I would make jokes about it with my friends to cope. I covered my eyes and those of all the ghouls giant googly eyes to show how I would take a bad thing and try and spin it into humor.
Teacher: Veronique Latimer

MAEA BIPOC Student Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Wayland High School

Student Name: Alyssa Ao
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: Recursion" explores the evolving relationship between an artist and their work. This triptych features three self-portraits that echo one another: a rigidly detailed colored pencil drawing, a looser double portrait in acrylic paint, and a vibrant rendering of all three iterations. These connected pieces reflect how the creative process transforms, becoming increasingly complex and exploratory.
Teacher: Veronique Latimer

Cape Cod Potters, Inc. Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Falmouth High School

Student Name: Maggie McLean
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: The balancing forms emphasize the beauty of contrasts we see in our everyday life. Two of the bottles were inspired by the interplay of day and night, and are covered in phrases that relate. The remaining two bottles were left blank to encourage the viewer to reflect the opposing relationships in their own life.
Teacher: Corine Adams

Virginia M. Diani Adams Memorial Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Acton Boxborough Regional High School

Student Name: Alicia Zhang
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece juxtaposes my cartoony persona with a more realistic depiction of myself. I use art to make tangible the ideas and emotions I struggle to express. Self-portraits have helped me explore and shape my personal identity. In this painting, the art I have made comes to life, and confronts my "real" self. It is a meeting between my internal and external worlds.
Teacher: Eliza Greene

Blick Art Materials Gift Card Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Silver Lake Regional High School

Student Name: Karissa Smith
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece is about how growing up in a church that did not accept me made me feel. It is a self-portrait that shows me kneeling, in prayer, held down by saran wrap unable to move or breath. Religion is a thing that can make people grow but it is also a thing that can tie down and suffocate, I wanted to show the latter.
Teacher: Hannah Close

Blick Art Materials Gift Card Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Wayland High School

Student Name: Sydney Lozano
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: As a child, meeting new people terrified me. I felt small as if I were surrounded by a forest of legs. I used a sepia palette to convey the memory. I found a recipe for walnut ink. and collected walnuts on a walk. I soaked them overnight, then boiled and strained them to make the ink. For areas that needed more depth, I enhanced it with India ink to balance the organic tones with bold contrast.
Teacher: Veronique Latimer

Blick Art Materials Gift Card Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Norwood High School

Student Name: Peter Jeneid
Grade: Grade 10
Artist Statement: My work depicts a scene in Lebanon that has been bombed due to the current attacks, and a pair of hands coming down to the smoke cloud attempting to cut it off and away. I wanted this piece to represent a surreal hope that people of Lebanon have at this time of hardship.
Teacher: Saquora Lowe-McLaurin

Blick Art Materials Gift Card Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Norwood High School

Student Name: Noura Doujaiji
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece shows my journey with anxiety. When people see this piece I want them to feel the painting. I want the viewer to feel the ache and sorrow of anxiety. For me, my anxiety makes me dizzy, and I have shortness of breath causing me to bite my fingers. When I experience anxiety I feel alone so I am sharing how my anxiety affects me and I hope to let other people know that they are not alone.
Teacher: Laurie Mead McGrory

Hat Sisters Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Medfield High School

Student Name: Sonya Moiseyeva
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This fragmented portrait explores the nuance of individual features, while representing a drifting thought process. The traditional front-facing portrait is intersected by a more progressive three-quarter view, showing a shift in perception & interest. My attention next focuses on the detail of reflected light in the eye & finally the patterning of the sweater & background for a bolder balance.
Teacher: meg drew

Art for All Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Silver Lake Regional High School

Student Name: Olivia Silveira
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece explores the negative impacts of my dance practice on my personal wellbeing. Within the dance world, there is pressure to sustain the “perfect” body type in order to belong. This forms a distorted perspective of the ideal figure having little to no body fat. Her exposed back with accentuated bones creates a personal confrontation of the impacts of dance on day-to-day life.
Teacher: Hannah Close

Art for All Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Silver Lake Regional High School

Student Name: Alexus Deaton
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: My piece represents imposter syndrome artists feel due to social media, which creates doubt because of the rise of AI and the criticism artists face. I wanted to explore my own feelings on the subject through a shadowy figure looming over me. All textures and effects are a call to old screens to mimic being trapped behind one, a symbol for the prison that perception creates.
Teacher: Hannah Close

Blick Art Supplies Gift Card
Organization or School Affiliation: Dennis Yarmouth Regional High

Student Name: Hillary Joshy Dos Santos
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This sculpture is a self portrait referencing my emotions and feelings. I had a plaster mold made of my face to get the resemblance of me and this gave me the ability to alter the clay creating two faces on one body to portray how I feel on different occasions. I also used a Roku firing technique to help with creating my color scheme to enhance the positive/peaceful, and challenging/rough me.
Teacher: Craig Brodt

Blick Art Supplies Gift Card
Organization or School Affiliation: Wayland High School

Student Name: Tara Sawrikar
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece represents the power a group of people can have to break free against a strong authority or force. This specific piece highlights the issue of overfishing and the battle animals have to go through before they come to people as food. The Madeiran Sardine is currently endangered and on the trajectory to go extinct, so my hope for this piece is that it can spread awareness to their cause.
Teacher: Veronique Latimer

Blick Art Supplies Gift Card
Organization or School Affiliation: Oliver Ames High School

Student Name: Ava Vieira
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: The piece “Tea with Avo” is of importance to me, as it captures my Portuguese identity. My mother's parents are from Madeira, and my father's are from the Azores, giving me two slightly different cultures to experience. The doily was handmade in Portugal and gifted to me by my Avo (grandmother) on my mother's side. The tea set peeking in on the bottom was gifted to me from my other Avo.
Teacher: Kristyn Shea

Printmakers of Cape Cod, Inc. Best Print Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Falmouth High School

Student Name: Eleanor Rosenthal
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece was inspired when I went on a class field trip to the National Seashore and took a photograph of Cape Cod Light. I felt inspired by the lighthouse to create a piece representing the contrasting colors of light and dark in a medium I had never tried before. The process of linoleum printing always sparked my curiosity, so I knew this lighthouse would be perfect to test a first attempt.
Teacher: JANE F BAKER

Arthur B. Mazmanian Memorial Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Medfield High School

Student Name: Lina Gatti
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: This piece represents the synaesthetic experience of listening to music. Through multiple layers of color, shape, & illustration the music visually crowds a monochromatic self-portrait. This demonstrates the contrast of my exterior appearance with the vibrant audio & visual sense I am experiencing.
Teacher: meg drew

MAEA Art Educator Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Falmouth High School

Student Name: Alexander Fiske
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: Spiraling Down is an inner look into my personal experience with anxiety and fear of failure. Much like the staircase that is shown, anxiety seems to be a never ending spiral downwards into the dark. Sometimes there's a landing which allows temporary relief until you trip and fall further down the staircase. Spiraling Down is a way to visualize my personal struggle and an attempt to cope with it.
Teacher: Jane Fay Baker

MAEA Art Educator Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Dennis Yarmouth Regional High

Student Name: Annelise Brown
Grade: Grade 11
Artist Statement: This is a ceramic slab box with a sgraffito glaze design of a Snowy Owl. It has a background of a tree in a tundra biome, with flora and fauna around it. The Snowy Owl is listed as vulnerable as it is rapidly declining in numbers. Therefore, I thought it would be good to bring attention to it by incorporating it in my design.
Teacher: Craig Brodt

MAEA Art Educator Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Medfield High School

Student Name: Reya Edelglass
Grade: Grade 9
Artist Statement: In this piece the warm & inviting light of the city contrasts the cool light of the night. The cool tone of the sky & street reflections balance the warm tones of the surrounding buildings. I used an impasto oil pastel technique to illuminate the scene & bring life to the quiet city street.
Teacher: meg drew

MAEA Art Educator Award
Organization or School Affiliation: Groton-Dunstable Regional High School

Student Name: Abby Buchholz
Grade: Grade 12
Artist Statement: I wanted to create a piece that referenced Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup paintings, specifically the tomato soup. I also wanted it to tell more of a story. The concept of this piece is tomato soup come to life, a monster inside the can. To create it, I used the digital art program “Procreate,” and I used custom brushes to give it that pseudo-realism style.
Teacher: Rebecca Kostich