From Classroom to Gallery Wall: Ganesha High Teens Showcase Black History Art
At The Gallery at Hillcrest, a class assignment turns into a life-changing moment.
Updated March 5, 2026
On a recent Friday morning at Hillcrest, a retirement community in La Verne, high school students from Ganesha High School in Pomona stood beside framed portraits and digital movie posters, explaining their work to a room full of curious adults. For several, it was their first time in an art gallery—and their own work was on the walls.
"Seeing my art in an art gallery and being in an art gallery for the first time at the same time is, like, it's surreal. I'm looking at everyone else's art while I also have mine displayed, it's like two different feelings at the same time," said Ganesha art student Julia Arias-Hernandez.
“This is the fourth time we’ve done this show,” said Kevin Tharpe, artist, designer and Ganesha art teacher, who organizes the exhibit in partnership with Hillcrest. The idea started years ago when his mother, Gwen Carr, a Hillcrest resident, was talking with staff about the possibility of him showing his own art there. He suggested bringing his students, who rarely get a chance to display their work publicly, and the one‑off idea evolved into a recurring gallery show that many now describe as a turning point.
Hillcrest residents and community members, parents, school administrators and local leaders packed the opening reception, filling The Gallery at Hillcrest for the launch. The exhibit, which runs through March 27, showcases work from Ganesha High art students and their instructor, graphic artist Tharpe, and puts teenagers and retirees into the same room talking about art, race and influence across generations.
Tharpe said former students come back to tell him how much the experience meant. Many, he said, see it as the moment they realized their work—and their voice—mattered. The combination of finishing a long, demanding project and then talking about it with strangers, he tells them, should “help you see yourself at a higher level and grow your confidence for future challenges.”
Hillcrest resident and retired chemistry teacher Paula Frederick said that impact is exactly why the show matters. “It’s life changing for students,” Frederick said. “When you have someone who is authentic with you, who has your best interest at heart, that introduces you to something compelling about the world, it can change lives.”
Inside the gallery, the work ranged from large freehand stippling pieces created to painstakingly shaded pencil portraits and digitally reimagined movie posters celebrating Black history and culture.
Ganesha senior David Corona created a portrait of rapper Kendrick Lamar. He said he chose Lamar because the musician’s work tells stories about real life and resilience, themes that resonated with him. The smallest facial features—especially the nose and eyes—were the hardest to capture, and he said it took many rounds of adjustment before the details finally felt right. For a second piece, Corona turned to another music icon, Michael Jackson, focusing on layered shading and overlapping tones in the background to push himself to be more original and deliberate in his art.
Down the wall, senior Angelina Soto used digital tools and appropriation to critique racism and celebrate Black excellence. She reworked the poster for the film “Get Out,” replacing the main character with actor Morgan Freeman and changing the title to “The Period” to give the image a new meaning. Soto said she wanted to explore hidden and systemic racism—how prejudice can be disguised as kindness—and to emphasize control and oppression. A chair in the composition stands in for those power structures, while Freeman’s biography, added to the design, highlights his achievements and frames the piece as a celebration of Black excellence.
The black‑and‑white palette was a deliberate choice, Soto said, heightening contrast and echoing racial division. For Black History Month, she sees the work as a way to spotlight strength, success and representation in media and culture, rather than just referencing a horror film.
Sophomore Ayden Barragan said he hopes viewers move in close. He wants them to notice the emphasis on detail, compare different pieces and see what changes from one technique to another. For people who have never drawn before, he and his classmates explained, details are a window into the process—they show how long the work took and how much effort went into each mark.
Many visitors responded with the same basic questions: How did you do it, and how long did it take? Students in the drawing class said they heard those two lines again and again as people tried to understand the hours behind the finished portraits. Senior Savannah Flores told them it takes a lot of patience.
Students from both Tharpe’s drawing and graphics classes said the exhibit changed how they view art, galleries and themselves. For some, the biggest shift came from realizing how much time and revision serious work requires; standing in front of framed pieces that took weeks to complete, they began to see assignments as real work, worthy of careful explanation.
That shift is already shaping what they want to do next. Senior Javier Almaraz said that after this show, he feels like next time he can just dive into a big project instead of doubting himself. Tharpe said that’s exactly the point—he wants students to carry the confidence of this exhibit into whatever they create next.
By the end of the opening reception, one piece had already sold, and several students had been asked about commissions. But for Tharpe, the most important outcome wasn’t a sale. It was watching a teenager look at their work on the wall, answer a stranger’s question and begin to claim the title of artist. “Once you’re on the wall, you’ve already won,” he told them in class the following Monday.
And they will get more chances to win. The dA Center for the Arts in Pomona will host a student-focused art show this spring. Tharpe said he plans to hang pieces from the Hillcrest exhibit alongside new work his students are creating now.
View a portfolio of Kevin Tharpe's work at tfglab.com and see his time-lapse work on Instagram @tharpeflavor.
La Verne Daily News
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