Escobar's many different creations exemplify her ability to invoke emotion through her art. photo by Evelyn Jackson
The path that Celeste Escobar has created for herself and what her journey ahead looks like.
A student at Thomas Jefferson High School has been given the opportunity to create art and share her voice. Senior Celeste Escobar has been given the opportunity to spread her love for art to more than just her friends and family, but to all of Denver Public Schools.
Escobar has created art for a long time, but it wasn’t until her art teacher, Timi Biermann, pointed out her talent that she began to take art seriously and look into it as a future career. Bierman gave Escobar the inspiration and confidence to do something with the talent she had formed while experimenting with all different forms of art. Escobar likes to draw and take inspiration from movies and music, or other artists like Daniel Richter, who creates surrealist oil paintings. She especially enjoys anything that is “surrealist or dreamlike.” Escobar is interested in art history and hopes to study it in the future, which contributes to her pulling inspiration from different forms of art throughout the past.
Early this year, Escobar was approached with an opportunity to enter her art into a competition called The Congressional Art Competition. Within this competition, two representatives of the House for each state are chosen to co-host the event. A panel of judges from each state is selected and they then choose the winners. This year was not the first year Escobar has contributed to the contest; in fact, she has won a total of three times. Each year throughout high school she has submitted pieces. She was able to win second place and now has her art displayed in the Colorado Department of Education.
Her freshman year, Escobar created the piece “I’ve Been Thinking,” which she made in a day so she doesn’t have much sentimental value for the piece. Even though the piece didn’t mean much to her, she decided to enter it into the competition. She ended up winning second place overall which is an incredible feat considering the piece was a quick creation by Escobar. Her sophomore year she made “Our Favorite Spot” which is a piece that is made to resemble the loneliness the world presents for humanity. “You can be alone but not lonely, or surrounded by people and feel the loneliest you have ever felt,” explained Escobar. The piece is black and white and experiments with depth and dimension. Escobar wanted to show how empty a room can feel when you used to share it with another. The window is the most prominent part of the piece and therefore one of the trickiest. Escobar ended up cutting out the window part of the piece and adding cardboard to the back to add a layering effect. This choice gave Escobar the award “2nd best place overall” which is the highest award she received in the congressional art competition.
Now, in her senior year, the piece that she chose to enter was a practice, a challenge for her to work on her perspective and anatomy. Escobar’s undeniable talent is demonstrated through this piece. Her increasing talent throughout her life comes to flourish in this artwork. The trial and error of creating art follows an artist everywhere. In this artwork, the viewer can see the hours of work that was put into this piece.
Escobar continues to share her art with the world. This past summer, she applied for a residency program at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Denver. She was accepted and gave hours upon hours of her talent to create incredible pieces of art. This opportunity gave her the time and resources to flourish as an artist, creating pieces surrounding her life and what it truly means to create.
Escobar’s journey isn’t even close to its end. She has many more canvases to cover in paint and more paper to cover in ideas. While her life in high school is nearing completion, her creative ideas are not. The world of art has been historically seen as a challenging profession to pursue, it’s competitive and doesn’t provide much room for error. Even through this unfortunate industry that has led many to never to chase art as a career, Escobar will defy the odds. She hopes to earn her degree in art history and continue with internships and other paths that will help her on her journey as an artist. The relentless drive and undeniable talent that Escobar possesses will allow her to experience new things and create more pieces that invoke a variety of feelings in many different people. The path that Escobar is on is the right one – the path to success.
