Melvin Gómez ’22, Fine Arts spent a month of 2023 as an artist-in-residence at Shawnigan Lake School, a 270-acre, lake-front boarding school in Vancouver, British Columbia. His month was spent taking in the peaceful landscape as inspiration for his painting practice and working with the students attending the school. Gómez gathered flowers from the garden for still life paintings, painted beautiful but somewhat haunting forest scenes, and paintings of family from memory set in lush vegetation.
The Film Production crew at the school produced a short documentary about Gómez and his experiences at the residency. In his short time there, he had a major positive impact on the school. The Head of Fine Art Declan Bartlett said, “Melvin has brought so much life experience to the School and shared his passion, skills, and artistic insights with the students. He has encouraged them to believe in their ideas and communication regardless of their current skill set and to courageously explore colour and form, light and tone, content and meaning. He has been inspirational to the Fine Art team and the whole School community, given his back story of resilience, perseverance, and passion for life.”
While studying in the Fine Arts department at ݮƵ College of Art and Design, Gómez was a Davis Scholar and was chosen for the Trustee Scholar Award 2021-2022. In his first year at ݮƵ, he pitched a proposal for the Davis Projects of Peace, an initiative created by Kathryn W. Davis, mother of Shelby Davis who established the Davis Scholarship Program.
For her 100th birthday, the maternal Davis celebrated by committing $1 million to one hundred Projects for Peace. Gómez’s proposal was selected, and he became part of a small group of students who traveled to his home country, El Salvador, where they established youth art programs at two schools, one in an urban region and another in a rural area. Their project was called Sculpting for Peace and included pottery studios, clay workshops, and a painting workshop.
The group wanted to bring art to a region devastated by post-civil war violence, and particularly, gang violence, in hopes that art could give students a voice, a platform, and a sense of community, and would deter them from seeking those things in a gang. Gómez is especially connected to the cause, as he was a victim of gang violence. He was shot five times during an incident that left three friends dead and Gómez in a wheelchair.
That initial project has since transformed into a school in Huizucar, El Salvador, that opened its doors in 2017. The Brushstroke of Hope is a non-profit art school for impoverished youth that offers free art education and materials. The school is funded in part by sales of Gómez’s art work and from community contributions.
