The Young Masters Competition, a highly competitive fine arts contest hosted by the O’Donnell Foundation in partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), selected a total of 15 West students as finalists for the 2015-2016 year. Students who were taking or who had previously taken Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory, AP Art History, or AP Art were eligible to submit entries of musical compositions, artwork, and essays. Winning artwork will be put on display at the main concourse of the DMA from Feb. 27 through April 17. Winners will be announced on March 30 and the select few will be invited to a reception in their honor. Senior Karen Yang was one of the five Music Theory finalists from West.

“Last year, I took AP Music Theory with Mr. Akira Sato,” Yang said. “When he heard I was a composer, he strongly encouraged me to enter.”

Yang’s entry, a flute solo entitled Effusion was her departure from traditional classical forms as her first contemporary classical music piece.

“My piece focuses primarily on the constantly evolving nature of one idea, kind of like a train of thought,” Yang said. “It turned out to be very liberating, allowing me the freedom to push myself to the edge and really explore the limits of contemporary music.”

This was Yang’s second time as a finalist for the competition. While Yang’s entry adopted a more modern style, first year Art History student and junior Jesse Tan embraced the past when writing his submission.

“It was a pretty surreal experience,” Tan said. “I even got to meet with some workers at the DMA and talk about my essay, so I really appreciated the time and effort of the people who read and chose my essay.”

Tan’s essay entitled “Memorializing Triumph and Victory” was centered around the Roman Battle Sarcophagus at the DMA.

“At the time, I was extremely interested in Ancient Mediterranean artwork, especially that of the Greeks and Romans,” Tan said. “The Roman Battle Sarcophagus really managed to spark my interest due to its extremely action-packed scene depicting the chaos of combat.”

Tan wrote his 500-600 word essay by finding an artwork on the DMA website with a relevant theme, researching the piece using various sources and spending four to five days writing, revising and editing.

“My essay was mainly about how the Roman artist managed to draw parallels back to previous Greek works that also celebrated victory and glory in combat,” Tan said. “I think it managed to hit a lot of points that most people wouldn’t really think about at first glance.”

Senior and art finalist Jierui Fang also understands the idea that there may be more to a piece than what meets the eye.

“Initially, I wasn’t going to submit my piece, Shadows on the Wall,” Fang said. “I was going to submit another piece of photography, but one of my friends suggested that I submit this one.”

Fang used digitally manipulated photography to stitch together a variety of photographs she had taken within her own home.

“It’s a very dark scene with a lone figure cloaked in black with a white veil,” Fang said. “There’s a yellow eerie light coming from the right corner and three elongated shadows looming in the background. This image really plays with your idea of perception.”

The “lone figure” in the veil was Fang’s sister, whom she asked to model for her so that she could bring her vision to life.

“I was inspired by a unit we did in American Studies last year,” Fang said. “It was a defining gender unit. Basically, we were looking at the contrast between gender specific adjectives. Some words are repressive, limited to only one gender, male or female. I wanted to use my camera to create a repressive society.”

Fang was surprised upon seeing her name on the finalists list, considering the fact that she had created the piece junior year simply to meet a deadline.

“I never thought this piece would be competition worthy,” Fang said. “This just proves you can be blind to your own work.”

Art History: Jesse Tan, Mindy Dai (semifinalist)

Music Theory: Austin Ali, Omar Barradas, Gahwon Lee, Dara Li, Karen Yang

Art: Denni Zhao, Ani Barseghyan, Michaela Dowen, Yujin (Ashley) Seong, Rebecca Wong, Pratiksha Tonpe, Jieurei Fang, Tiffany Li, Maximillian (Maxx) Hess