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The seventh grade students at the Ross School curated an art show featuring eight East End artists for an exhibition to be held from May 2 to June 13, at the Ross School Gallery in East Hampton.

The exhibition for the Ross Gallery is entitled "Narratives: Real and Imagined - Eight East End Artists." The local artists featured are John Alexander, Michael Butler, Eric Fischl, Jim Gingerich, April Gornik, Lisa Kiss, Randall Rosenthal and Lounah Starr.

The students will host an opening reception at the Ross School Gallery on Friday, May 2, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The seventh graders performed all aspects of organizing this show including interviewing artists, choosing works to display, overseeing the gallery installation and planning the opening reception. They also wrote and designed a catalog, coordinating publicity.

This year, the team of seventh grade teachers coordinated the exhibition project with the students cultural history studies. Students explored and created work in response to the narrative art of the Maya, the myths depicted in Hellenistic sculptures and the stories shown in Roman painting and sculpture. They also wrote and illustrated six word narratives in their English classes.

Michael Butler, a self-taught artist from Sag Harbor, created narrative paintings, often about his family. Eric Fischl's work tells stories through body language of his figures and the way they make the viewer feel. The amazing aspect of Randall Rosenthal's sculptures is the way they manage to trick the observer into thinking they are real life objects. Lounah Starr is a 90-year-old artist who was born in the Hellenistic town of Bergama, now Turkey. Starr's works fit the theme of narrative art perfectly as all of her paintings tell stories. Jim Gingerich paints landscapes and figurative oils. He also creates graphic novels using pastel. The artist John Alexander is well known for his paintings of nature and those that express his political views. April Gornik paints landscapes that make you think about the history of places. Photographer Lisa Kiss records the plight of the East End's vanishing landscapes in her photographic collages.

In addition to the works of the eight East End artists, the students will display their own narrative artworks in the exhibition, including work done in collaboration with the artists. The show will remain on display from May 2 through June 13.

For more information or a private tour contact Diana Aceti at 631-907-5112, or daceti@ross.org or Jennifer Cross at 631-907-5238, or jcross@ross.org.

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