PORTRAITS: The Artist’s View

The artist’s interpretation of the individual is their signature.

The Ridge High School AP Studio Art and Photography students explores the relations between the artist and the model as have an unwritten agreement/contract and in so doing allows the artist to visually represent their impression of the model’s identity and personality.

This exhibition is about the relationship between the sitter and their engagement with the viewer.

Under the guidance of Wendell Jeffrey, Ridge High School Art Teacher, and William Ortega, Ridge High School Photography Teacher, 48 student artists created works that include an artist statement and portrait created in a variety of mediums including digital photography, digital drawings, colored pencil, graphite, markers, pastels, watercolor, acrylics and oils.

About Wendell Jeffrey:  Wendell Jeffrey has a MAT in Art Ed from the University of the Arts and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is a visual artist and art educator with over 30 years’ experience teaching, with 23 years at Ridge High School. Her special interest is in connections between teaching and real experiences outside of the classroom. Wendell has completed numerous residencies, including Vermont Studio Center and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She has received multiple awards and grants for her work including the Geraldine Dodge Foundation Artist Teacher Grants. Currently her studio orientation is rooted in drawing with elements of painting and printmaking integrated within mixed media sculptures and installations and has exhibited her work in both local and global venues.

About William Ortega: William A. Ortega is an educator and visual artist. He received his BFA from New Jersey City University, an MFA from Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and an MPS degree in Digital Photography at the School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited across the United States and was selected as a 2017 American Photography Latin American Photographia winner. He has been an educator for the past 20 years and has been teaching photography and digital media at Ridge High School since 2007.

As a first generation Latin American Ortega’s work focuses on the process of assimilation by exploring many themes of identity through his photographic images. Ortega’s projects are underlined with a sincere question about place, whether in its immediate physical presence by documenting and inspecting used items, landscapes, immediate family, ancestry and cultural racial history and its psychological impact. His work references male relationships and the modern day view of masculinity that addresses perplexing suggestions ingrained by our cultural unconsciousness.