ESA student Max Perone’s named finalist for prestigious Saatchi art prize

Bloor West Villager

Etobicoke School of the Arts’ visual artist Max Perone’s excitement at being named a 2016 Saatchi Gallery finalist out of 22,000 entrants quickly turned to pondering a looming practical consideration.

The Swansea award-winning visual artist’s sculpture, “Repression,” is a collection of 900 plaster faces, some emotionally neutral, others screaming, displayed in three steel cages.

It weighs one-and-a-half tonnes.

“It was really kind of awesome,” Perone, 17, said of learning from his teacher and the school’s head of visual art, Matthew Varey, he was a finalist in the prestigious international art competition.

“Initially, I was really excited. That quickly developed into how would I bring the piece over?” to London, England for this week’s Saatchi Gallery/Deutsche Bank Art Prize for School’s exhibition and contest.

Shipping one cage with minimal faces would have cost a prohibitive $10,000. Instead, Perone sent judges six-foot-tall prints of his art installation.

“Repression” is Perone’s exploration “of our never-ending struggle to hide our emotions, our inner turmoil, behind a socially acceptable face,” he explained. “What can be put out in the world and what has to be hidden to make a functioning society.

“It’s a reflection of why it’s almost mandatory in a way that we do this.”

It is the teen’s largest-scale art piece.

He cast 10 moulds of his face. Then set the moulds in plaster.

Initially, he made a pair of faces for a class assignment that asked students to create a personal response to the concept of protection.

Then, Perone exploded the project to a massive scale.

“Our teachers always say, ‘that’s amazing. Why don’t you make 100?’” he said. “So I started with my first 100 faces. But they wouldn’t fit the cage I made. So I decided to make two more cages.”

He enlisted the help of his mom, Alix Campbell, to cast moulds at home while he made more at school.

“At peak efficiency, we were able to make about 50 faces a day.”

Jack Perone, his dad, helped him weld the cages.

Perone and his parents worked on the installation for approximately 200 hours over a two-month period last fall. “Some of the faces were still wet at Portfolio Day.”

Last November, 20 Etobicoke School of the Arts’ Grade 12 students, including Perone, showcased their photography, paintings, drawings, sculptures and films at the school’s sixth annual Portfolio Day in a bid to attract substantial scholarships from 53 of the world’s top arts colleges and universities.

In 2015, ESA’s fifth annual Portfolio Day secured scholarships in excess of $4 million to 20 students. One student alone captured three full tuition offers, and just over $800,000 in total offers.

At Portfolio Day, Perone received an application from a Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ recruiter.

Varey isn’t surprised.

Perone “embodies the sort of risk-taking and responsibility for his artistic understanding and output” that has helped Etobicoke School of the Arts’ visual art finds its place on the world stage, Varey said.

Perone’s finalist status (he’s one of 20) in the Saatchi contest “indicates how truly successful Max has been in translating sophisticated thinking into large-scale and fully realized sculptural installations,” Varey added.

Perone flew to London on Tuesday with his parents.

The Saatchi contest chooses one primary school winner, aged four to 11, and one secondary school winner aged 11 to 18. Each student wins £1,000, and £5,000 for their school’s art department.

The overall winner chosen from both age categories receives £2,000 and £10,000 for their school’s art department.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on March 3.