18-05-2025
City of Detroit's arts and culture office hosts student gallery for its headquarters opening
About fifty works of colorful and thematic student art lined the walls and tables of Detroit's Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship's new headquarters during its opening at the Butzel Family Recreation Center, 7737 Kercheval Ave., on Friday, May 16.
Lacey Holmes, ACE's project manager for arts initiatives, said ACE solicited submissions from schools, art teachers and community organizations throughout Detroit.
'What you're seeing is some of the brilliance that's happening in schools across the city,' ACE Director Rochelle Riley said about the gallery.
The Kresge Foundation and the Hudson-Webber Foundation sponsored the city gallery and work with ACE to engage the city's next generation of artists, Riley said.
The gallery's youngest student artist Ema Aguilar Moreno, 10, attends Achieve Charter Academy. She said her art was inspired by hard workers who stay up from sunrise to sunset.
The gallery's oldest students included seniors in high school.
Detroit School of Arts senior Cy Proctor had two pieces in the show. One piece meshes robots and machines with Japanese culture, while his other 'less-calculated' piece depicts an octopus, he said.
Detroit School of Arts junior Kamren Barnett said his piece conveys 'oneness' and 'tapping into creation,' as the man in his painting touches the milky way.
'This was a whole experience trying to find the best way possible to express myself,' Barnett said. 'I am trying to convey there is no difference between us and creation itself.'
Riley said the department aims to show Detroit's youth the importance of art and encourage them to pursue dreams, including careers as poets, historians or Broadway performers.
'Everything we do is to show our children the things they can do and be,' Riley said. 'What they must understand is that art is business, and we're going to make sure that people understand that the creative arts industry is an industry. It is not a hobby.'
Artists Dana Hansen and Zirrea Brown plan to study art in college.
Hansen, a senior at Detroit School of Arts, plans to major in painting at Wayne State University next year.
Hansen said her art teacher picked out which pieces to submit to the gallery and that her three pieces were a part of her Advanced Placement Art portfolio with a 'hair' theme.
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Brown, a junior at Cass Tech High School, said her dream schools include Georgia's Savannah College of Art and Design and Detroit's College for Creative Studies. Brown said she created her piece in the show for an art class assignment with a vampire theme.
'I wanted to make sure that you looked at some of the artists who came out tonight because their work is being recognized,' Riley said to the families and ACE supporters at the opening ceremony in a sparkling cider toast to the artists. 'Remember their names so when they are rich and famous, you should say, 'I knew them when…''
ACE's newest project will provide 43 artists mural space in nine different Detroit allies, Riley said.
'We're taking these really torn up allies that are behind people's houses in nine neighborhoods and turning them into these beautiful outdoor museums with art, new concrete, new sewer work,' Riley said. 'It's almost like having special parks and plazas right behind your house.'
Outside of the mural project and art gallery, ACE awards 'creative stars' who have given at least 25 years of service to the Detroit arts.
Previous ACE honoree Debra White-Hunt, artistic director and co-founder of Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy, attended the ACE headquarters launch.
'We do as much as we can (with ACE). Arts are who we are,' White-Hunt said.
Dance shoes decorated by Detroit-Windsor Academy students were among art displayed in the gallery. White-Hunt said her students decorated shoes because of a display of painted shoes in the studio.
ACE began in 2019. It currently has a three-person staff, and its previous location was in the Marygrove Conservancy. Its third annual ACE Honors Ceremony will take place on Friday, May 23, at the Bedrock Tower.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit students display artwork in City's ACE headquarter launch
