Kennedy High School senior Tiffany Yam’s artwork debuted in late March at the opening of Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at the The Heckscher Museum of Art.      

This prestigious exhibition is the only juried show on Long Island that provides high school students the opportunity to exhibit their work in a museum setting. Students were challenged to create original pieces inspired by artwork from the museum’s collection. This year, 87 students were selected from 456 submissions representing 69 high schools. 

In addition to being selected for the exhibition, Yam received the Renzo & Lynette Bianchi Scholarship Award and was recognized at the March 29 awards ceremony. She is a senior in Vanessa Albaneze’s Advanced Placement Drawing class. 

Yam is also among a select group of 27 students whose work will be featured at the Firefly Gallery from May 7 through May 20. An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 8, from 7–9 p.m. 

Earlier this school year, Yam earned a Gold Key in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for her piece Congratulations. She also received a Silver Key for her self-portrait, Flickers. 

Her artwork will remain on view at the Heckscher Museum through May 5. 

“My piece, Encased, was inspired by Katinka Mann’s Navy,” noted Yam. “Mann’s exploration of depth perception and dimensionality inspired me to create a similar work centered around three-dimensional shapes. I aimed to capture the feeling of a dark and foreboding shell hiding a beautiful and inviting interior, a bullet case concealing a red lipstick.”  

Yam created Encased by photographing a bullet lipstick casing and the lipstick itself, then digitally layering and splicing the images.  

“Using that reference image, I created an image on an illustration board with colored pencils,” Yam explained. “The image explores contrasting sensory phenomena like cold versus warmth and softness versus hardness, the contrasting objects relative to human versus weapon.”