ART : Showcasing Talents of Minors in a Major Way

Budding artists from the Santa Ana Unified School District will showcase their talents in “Major Art/Minor Artists,” an exhibit at the Newport Harbor Art Museum on display beginning Saturday.

The exhibit will sample mostly two-dimensional artwork from 160 elementary school students who have participated in an intensive art project called Special Studio. The show includes a contemporary and multicultural collection of professionally displayed tempera paintings, oil pastel and Magic Marker drawings, Matisse-inspired, brightly colored mixed media collages and papier-mache reliefs influenced by Mayan art.

Among the nearly 400 works charting the students’ midyear progress are self-portrait mandalas, round images in intense colored marker surrounded by radiating concentric circles of objects important to each student; oil pastel abstracts of animals juxtaposed with realistic versions of the same image, and oversized postage stamps designed for various endangered species.

One work inspired by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, an intricate self-portrait by a 10-year-old fourth-grade boy, was used for the exhibit’s promotional material. The complex drawing in black marker shows one image of the boy’s face with a lizard crawling over it, and a second face with a snake and vines wrapped around the neck and a light bulb rising out of the head to reveal the boy’s dream of being an artist.

The Special Studio project, a 20-week program led by Orange County artists Kim Burke, Joycelyn Dixon and Helen Seigel, began seven years ago as an extension of the Artists-in-Schools program. The youngsters who participate in the program are selected from the district’s third, fourth, and fifth grades for their artistic potential. The program, now in its seventh year, reaches each of the district’s five elementary schools on a rotating basis.

A reception for the students, teachers, families and friends will be held at the museum on Friday, Jan. 24, from 6 to 9 p.m.

What: Major Art/Minor Artists exhibit.

When: Saturday, Jan. 18, through Feb. 2.

Where: Newport Harbor Art Museum, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach.

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to the Jamboree exit. Go west on Jamboree Road about 4 miles. Go left at Santa Barbara Road to San Clemente Drive, and left again to museum.

Wherewithal: $3 museum admission for adults; $2 for students and seniors; $1 for ages 6 to 12. Admission is free on Tuesdays.

Where to Call: (714) 759-1122.