By Maria Guzman
From fairies to talking animals, the Mystical Imagery Show challenged talented young artists to portray a scene that contained fantasy elements. Allie Perry, junior, channeled her inspiration from dreams and placed first at the competition.
The show featured competitors from schools all over the Miami-Dade County, with each sending in five of their best pieces. From those, only 40 drawings were selected to compete for the top prize.
Perry’s self-portrait, a meticulously pencil drawn black-and-white profile, features Perry’s eyes shut and her mouth slightly open as if she is lost in another world.
Above the sleeping artist, monarch butterflies hover. Dozens of drawn crumpled papers with lines from poems about dreams written on them surround the border. Below the poem lines, Perry depicts her dreams with commentary included.
“During the time that I was doing this piece I was going through a transitional period in my life,” Perry said. “I was changing and growing in ways I couldn’t imagine. I felt like the whole rebirth of myself was surreal, like a dream.”
Allie Perry kept a dream journal in which she would record her nightly fantasies.
“That’s how Salvador Dali and the other great surreal artists made their pieces,” said art teacher Frank O’Hare.
Miami Beach Senior High student Louie Willis received second place for his piece depicting a whale with arrows emerging from it.
“I felt I had accomplished something good,” Willis said. “Just another step to becoming an artist in the near future.”
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