🎨🖌️ The 2025 Buncombe County Schools All-County High School Art Exhibition is now open at the Asheville Mall, and it’s a must-see showcase of student talent, vision, and voice.
On display through May 17, the exhibition features an incredible range of work from student artists across all BCS high schools, including painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, ceramics, printmaking, and more. Each piece tells a story, from deeply personal reflections on empathy and emotional growth to symbolic explorations of change and identity.
“This year, the work feels especially rich,” said BCS Arts specialist Laura Mitchell. “You can sense the way students are still processing life after the storm. There’s emotional depth even in pieces that don’t state it outright.”
Senior A.C. Reynolds’s High artist Sage’s acrylic painting, for example, explores the burden of intense empathy.
“I make myself overly anxious for others,” she shared. “This piece is about being overwhelmed by other people’s emotions.”
“Art class helped me figure out how to show how I feel- through colors, shapes, symbolism,” said Lyra, a junior at Reynolds. “My current portfolio is all about change, in every sense of the word.”
And for Enka High senior Ella, winner of this year’s Educator’s Award, art has become a lifelong pursuit.
“I didn’t expect to win,” she said. “But now I’m heading to UNC Asheville to study art, and it’s inspired in part by my high school art experience.”
Congratulations to all our talented student artists and the dedicated art educators who guide them. Swing by the Asheville Mall through May 17 to be inspired and maybe even see the world through a new lens.