Francesca Dizon ’26’s artwork incorporates realism to depict personal life events and figures while using primarily graphite as her medium. An Upper from Sausalito, California, Dizon is channeling this dedication to art into her Art 600 class this Fall. As an advanced, year-long arts course offered to Uppers and Seniors, Art 600 is designed to help students broaden their art experience through self-directed work amongst similarly motivated and artistically talented peers.
Dizon has always found joy and solace in art, using it as her point of stability within the busy world around her. Especially in the unfamiliarity of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dizon buried herself deep into her passion for art. She developed different techniques using both graphite and acrylic paints to reflect her creative voice.
“Art has always been a constant passion ever since birth. I’ve always been drawing, and as a very young kid, I was immediately interested in it. It would always just serve as passion and something that I loved doing, but I didn’t really take it seriously until Covid-19, and I took the time during the lockdown to really practice. I had all these empty sketchbooks, and with all the time that I had and just to process my situation, I would draw. I would fill a page everyday in my sketchbook, and I practiced different techniques and skills. I focused on graphite drawings and then I started exploring acrylic painting too, but then I also was just trying to find my creative voice rather than just realism. Or, I do practice realism, but I am just trying to be a bit more imaginative with my work,” said Dizon.
Even before she arrived at Andover, Dizon had her sights fixed on Art 600; it was a course that enabled her to express personal style in a group environment. Dizon talks about the class’ first exhibition of the year, which went up this week with an open-ended theme of “hanging on.” She feels inspired by the artistic talent of the peers in her class, and their unique artistic background and preferences.
Dizon said, “I’ve always been interested in this course ever since I applied to Andover because I was always looking for something more serious for my art. It’s so great how we have the freedom to express ourselves and our personal style and just work on our independent projects but also together as a whole.”
Dizon continued, “Today, we put up our first exhibition, we finished it, and the theme was ‘hanging on.’ It was such a free, open-ended prompt that I really haven’t seen before in art classes, and I’m excited to see where such freedom will take us later on in the year. We were given a hanger and we were just prompted to interpret hanging on however we will. And everyone’s projects were so, so unique and so meaningful and inspired, and it’s so incredible to work with such talented people who are very unique as artists.”
Marcela Hernandez ’25, who is also taking Art 600 this year, comments on both Dizon’s artistic abilities and work ethic. Amidst the stress and workload of Upper Year, Dizon committed herself to the course primarily taken by Seniors. Hernandez believes this speaks to Dizon’s passion for art as a peaceful and expressive outlet for all her emotions.
“Francesca is very diligent and is a hard worker… She pays attention to detail, and she was able to use different papers, colors, and textures to be able to enhance her drawings to make them come to life… I’m pretty sure Art 600 is her sixth course. For her, art is used as an outlet to take time for herself and explore all the different media and ways of expression for her. I assume as Upper Year is coming along with all her academic courses that she’s taking [which are] definitely really challenging, [Art 600] is just a great outlet for her to express herself and do that through her artwork,” said Hernandez.
At the course’s culmination, students complete a final independent project that is part of the Art 600 exhibition in the Gelb Gallery. Dizon discusses her thoughts for the topic of her final project, where she wants to continue a project she is currently workshopping. Entitled “Memoirs of my Father,” it would depict Dizon’s memories of shared moments between her and her father.
“I was thinking of continuing a project that I already started. It’s called ‘Memoirs of my Father,’ and it’s a series that I started to focus on the preservation of lives and relationships through guided memory. So, I’m focusing on scenes that I remember from that journey of his life. It’s all in graphite and in all of them I edit blue into it in some way. I have one piece that’s a nightstand and then there’s a little blue edited into one aspect of the wall; or I’ll do two pieces and one is graphite and one is blue; or two that I really liked are portraits and they are of me and my dad and his silhouette is filled with blue. I did that because the color blue symbolizes love and how that power overtakes sad aspects. But I want to continue that project,” said Dizon.
