By CARRIE DEBRONE
Kitchener Citizen
   It’s sometimes difficult to get teenagers to talk --- about anything. But, ask them to tell you what’s on their minds by creating a piece of art and their thoughts come through loud and clear.
    A show featuring 90 art pieces created by Sunnyside Senior Public School grade 8 students was on display in March at the Stanley Park Community Centre. Titled “We Want Your Help,” the student’s creations tackled world issues like poverty, racism, hunger and pollution as well as teen issues such as bullying, depression, suicide and self-image.
   The 5th annual exhibit, spearheaded by Sunnyside Art teacher Chantry Makinen, allows students to have their voices heard.
   “They have come up with these topics on their own. Each year, I am amazed at the issues that pre-teens are concerned with. It can be anything from pollution, war, drug and alcohol pressures to bullying, fitting in and relationships, just to name a few,” Makinen said.
   The students were allowed to create their work using any type of material, and display their thoughts in any style of art to get their point across either abstractly or directly.
   The show featured a sample of works chosen from more than 250 created for the project, with the remainder of works exhibited throughout Sunnyside Public School.
Student Comryn Bonn, whose charcoal and pencil drawing titled A Silent Villain was on display at the community centre show.
   “It’s trying to show someone who is looking though glasses and contemplating suicide. My Mom’s a cop and she’s had a lot of experience with that. I tried to pick a subject that would affect people. My goal is to try to change people’s views on the way they live or allow them to see things differently,” Bonn said.
   Student artist Angel Morgan’s picture, done in pencil crayon and marker and titled ‘Top of the Tree’ shows a girl crying in the forehand and an apple tree in the background.
   She explained that the apples at the top of the tree signify confident, intelligent and real-life girls while the ones at the bottom of the tree and on the ground signify those who are concerned about image, and are less confident and more vulnerable.
   “It’s aimed at guys, to try and make them look a little deeper into girls. The boys don’t want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of getting hurt,” Morgan said.
   Student artist Helen Schreyer’s art piece titled A Peephole to Reality, features a girl looking through a peephole into a world of problems.
   It seems like a lot of people are not aware of these problems so I used the peephole to portrait that,” Schreyer said.
   She estimates it took a few weeks of work to complete her finely detailed pencil crayon, graphite, newspaper and marker creation, which contains three moveable circular wheels with land masses made from cut out newspaper articles glued on them to look like the world.
  Turning each ‘world’ reveals another issue. Schreyer explained that one represents media and how advertising deludes people. Other portions of the intricate creation represent many issues including environmental pollution, war, racism, drug abuse, suicide, lack of education, world peace and hunger.