St. Louis Arts School Receives New Gallery

ST. LOUIS — Central Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) High School in St. Louis recently celebrated the opening of its new student art gallery. The facility will showcase the work of 113 art majors, and will be open to visitors both during and after school hours.

The gallery — a 600-square-foot reimagined classroom within the 400-student, college preparatory magnet school — can accommodate 3D and other art exhibits. It features fabric-wrapped panels to display pieces along the perimeter walls, as well as three rows of display cabinets. Strategically placed LED spotlights highlight both the artwork and illuminate the center of the space.

CVPA students receive a rigorous education of core classes in addition to specialized courses in their chosen major area. Students spend an average of three hours per day in their chosen art concentration — including dance, instrumental and vocal music, theatre arts and visual arts — with the remainder dedicated to academics and electives.

“Having an art gallery adds validity to our visual arts students,” said Dwayne Buggs, the school’s dean of arts, in a statement.

“The Kwame Art Gallery gives the visual arts majors the opportunity to showcase their work on the same level as our performing arts students,” added Dr. Amy Phillips, principal of CVPA, in a statement. “Art is meant to be seen and experienced.”

“The Kwame Art Gallery also lets our visual arts majors become immersed in the experience of being a professional artist,” Phillips continued. “Students experience publicizing a show, putting out a call for art, hanging the work in an aesthetically pleasing manner, curating entries, lighting the show and selling their art at gallery openings.“

Kwame Building Group Inc., a construction management firm headquartered in St. Louis, provided both the labor and materials for the gallery’s development free of charge. Kwame Building Group CEO Tony Thompson became involved with school through the music scholarships awarded by Kwame Foundation, the nonprofit organization he and wife Kim Thompson founded in 2003 to “help provide young people the chance to learn, grow, and achieve their professional goals,” according to the foundation’s mission statement. The Kwame Foundation also endows scholarships at a number of science and engineering colleges and universities.

“We worked closely with art teachers and school administrators to take their vision and make it reality,” said Zachary Hamilton, vice president at Kwame Building Group, in a statement. “This was truly the melding of art and construction.”