By Saniyah Courtney

At Patterson High School, AP Art students led by Ms. Holter developed sustained investigations that explore personal details, creative ideas, and emotional expression through a variety of media and techniques. Each artist builds a portfolio of work that fits their chosen theme of choice while experimenting with different materials such as clay, painting, markers, and many other mediums to communicate meaning.

Jacoiya Roscoe’s sustained investigation in AP Art centers around surrealism, which is her second portfolio. She explores distorted realities and gives them a deeper meaning. She works with paint, markers, charcoal, and even colored pencils. One of her key artworks focuses on paranoia, showing how fear can alter perception and create a sense of mental unease.

Emily Gasca-Palma’s sustained investigation focuses on femininity, examining how identity and womanhood can be represented through art. She uses painting and sketches to explore emotions that connect to her theme. One of her artworks is a painting of a uterus shaped with flowers. She creates a highlight of balance and strength, which shows femininity as layered, personal, and shaped by experience.

Kaiya Patterson’s sustained investigation explores surrealism, horror, and fear, creating bizarre, unsettling visual narratives inspired by psychological tension and imagination. Working mainly in clay, she builds realistic sculptural forms while adding unexpected details to her artwork. Her artwork focuses on the contrast between realism and distortion, using horror-inspired themes to evoke emotion and challenge perception. This is also Kaiya’s second year of doing AP art. Even after all the challenges, she has managed to have extra work for her portfolio and is ready to get her life back after she graduates.

Kevin Valencia-Arzola’s sustained investigation focuses on Asian culture, drawing inspiration from tradition, identity, and telling a story without words. He works with both painting and ceramics, exploring cultural themes through different materials. One of his artworks involved breaking a plate that he had made of clay and fixing it with gold. This artwork represents Japanese culture by showing how broken items are fixed with gold in their culture.