Senior Sean Monahan was nominated for the American Visions award, the most prestigious regional award presented by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, for his artistic print entitled “Brent.” The piece gets its name from Monahan’s friend, whom it depicts in black and white from the neck up. In the print, Brent’s hand is raised to cover his mouth and glasses obstruct his eyes and much of his face. Monahan drew him how he saw him, the hand representing his reluctance to talk to new people, and the glasses, his shyness. The earphones Brent is shown wearing represent, as Monahan said, that he “[doesn’t like] to listen to things unless he’s very interested in them.”

                 “Him and another group of people who I feature in my artwork were a really close-knit group of people who I hang out with,” Monahan said. “I would say I try to portray them in my art the way I that I see them in real life, just a bit more expressive.”

                Monahan makes art about the people he feels strongly about, because when he’s not passionate about the subject of his art, he can’t envision it.

                 “The strong feeling doesn’t even have to be positive, it can be negative, or even hateful,” Monahan said. “It just has to be something that means a lot to me or had a great enough impact on my life that I can envision how I see them, and how I want to portray how I see them in my art.”

                The appeal of art, to Monahan, comes from its ability to express thoughts and emotion in a genuine way.

                 “You can always talk to someone about what’s going on in your life, but I didn’t want to just talk it through with someone, I wanted to process it on my own, and art was just a good release for that.”

                Monahan’s inspiration isn’t always clear to him while he’s creating. He just knows that what he’s making means something to him, even if he can’t articulate what it is at the time.

                 “I think a lot of the messages that I interpret from my art come after making them or early on before making them,” Monahan said. “During the process of making them, I wouldn’t say it’s feelingless, but it’s not this rush of emotion, because it takes hours to make these art pieces, and it’s hard to hold those feelings for a long time.”

                The process Monahan used to create “Brent,” and several other of Monahan’s award-winning pieces of art is called, “printmaking.” Printmaking is the process of making prints, primarily by either linoleum cuts or drypoint etching. In linoleum cuts, the linoleum is etched then put through a printer, and everywhere that hasn’t been cut is dyed black, leaving the cut portion white. Drypoint etching works in the opposite way, leaving ink on the mounds (“burrs”) that form next to the wells of the cuts while the rest is left blank. Last year Monahan was awarded a scholastic silver key for his linoleum cut, but this year he switched to drypoint etching on plexiglass. He won five golden keys for the five drypoint etchings he submitted.

                 “The trick about linoleum cuts is that you can’t have very much texture. You can’t have any gradient, or value in it. It has to be heavy black on heavy white, there’s no grayscale in between. With etching you get a lot of grayscale because you have the varying burrs.”

                Monahan’s interest in art began in first grade at St Robert Bellarmine, but he didn’t learn to love it until he switched to Beveridge Magnet Middle School. At St Robert Bellarmine, art education wasn’t emphasized, with art classes available just once every other week.

                 “You can’t really fall in love with something if you’re not given the chance to do it,” Monahan said.

                When he switched to Beveridge Middle School, his passion was ignited, but his lack of previous art education meant that he had to struggle to catch up to his peers. He has continued taking art classes and improving his skills throughout high school.

                 “My freshman year I met one of my best friends, Ashley, she was in my first period art class, and she’s been in every art class of mine since freshman year. I always looked up to her artwork and it’s been interesting seeing it now become a back-and-forth since I feel like I’ve fully caught up to the level that [she’s] on.”

                Monahan was accepted into Creighton with art scholarships and plans to major in marketing with either a minor or a double major in the fine arts, depending on what’s available.

Monahan wants to stay at Creighton, but, as he said, “College is a crazy place; My parents both transferred from college to college.”

                “To put it easily,” Monahan said, “Wherever I go and whatever I do, it will always have art in it.”