Back in the picture

Two local colleges are showing off their students’ best work, as both Golden West College and Coastline Community College unveil their year-end student exhibitions in Huntington Beach.

For Coastline College, it will be the first such show in four years. The closure of the college’s previous gallery in Costa Mesa kept students from being able to show their work at school, drawing and painting professor Lynn Torrini said.

“You could have gotten a whole college education without being in one student exhibition,” she said. “I think this is going to be huge. They [students] are thrilled; they don’t get to exhibit like this.”

The number of student-submitted paintings, Chinese-style watercolors, drawings, digital works — including a painted ceramic mask — up on the gallery’s walls Tuesday was 131, with a couple of late entries still to come. More than a dozen will win prizes or take home an honorable mention at the reception Friday evening, and several are listed for sale by the artist.

Torrini, who teaches numerous classes in the visual arts department, feels she can take some credit for the response.

“I pushed it real hard,” she said. “I said ‘Enter! Enter! Enter!’ They’re into it big-time now. I think it’s fabulous for them to be in a show.”

Curator Jay Sagen said artists weren’t the only ones involved in the exhibition. His gallery curating class, which meets there weekly, put their own stamp on the show.

“A good deal of this was put up by them,” he said, gesturing around the exhibit. “We would kind of argue about how it’s going to be, where the art will hang, and have them make choices. Sometimes I would have to put my foot down.”

Golden West College will follow with its own student exhibition Tuesday in what curator Donna Sandrock says is the 40th anniversary of such shows. More than 100 works of mixed media, drawings, paintings, sculptures, ceramics and pieces of jewelry chosen by instructors will adorn the gallery.

Because the Tuesday reception is coordinated with the school’s Scholarship and Awards Convocation, numerous faculty, much of the school administration, and parents will be there to witness the opening.

“We’ve tried to make it a real big to-do,” she said. “Coordinators of student scholarships, patrons, the docents, the chancellor, the board of trustees, the president — they’ll all be there.”