DALLAS, TX – Dallas-based non-profit ATG Against The Grain Productions is proud to announce its 7th Annual Fashion for a Passion Exhibiting Artists. For the first time ever in the event’s history, these six talented artists recently received honors as 2015 Against The Grain Artistic Scholarship finalists or winners, noted for their scholarship, artistic abilities and pursuit of the arts as Asian American high school, college and graduate students. In keeping with part of the organization’s mission to support and provide a platform for emerging Asian American artists, Fashion for a Passion, which will take place Saturday, Nov. 7, at 7 for Parties in the Design District, will showcase an eclectic mix of paintings, film, sketch drawings and photographs as well as an array of talent from various backgrounds.
“Our selection of six artists may not fall in line with our theme of ‘Lucky Number 7,’ but we feel pretty fortunate to have had such a talented pool of scholarship students from which to pull from,” said ATG President/Founder Tammy Nguyen Lee. “This year’s audience is in for a real treat with an amazing display of works that we have in store for them.”
Guests of Fashion for a Passion will have the opportunity to bid on each artist’s work through a silent auction. Proceeds from the silent auction and tickets to the event will benefit ATG’s supported orphanages and underprivileged children in Asia, artistic and leadership scholarship fund and community outreach programs.
Introducing our 7th Annual Fashion for a Passion Exhibiting Artists:
Sophie Chien
Raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Sophie Chien was surrounded by critiques and discussions about design as her parents are both architects. This influence drew her to enroll in IB Visual Art classes for most of her high school career, specifically focusing on sculpture and photography.
In addition to her artistic leadership, Chien was Captain of the Varsity Field Hockey team, manager and member of her high school’s award-winning World Quest team as well as an active member of the National Honor, National Art Honor and National Science Honor Societies and Odyssey of the Mind. Outside of school, she leads a team of socially-conscientious students for the nonprofit Clothes for Change, recently helping to raise more than $8,000 for scholarships for female high school graduates (many of them underrepresented minorities) to attend a local community college.
Katherine Del Rosario
This youngest of three daughters was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. A current sophomore at Arizona State University, majoring in Fine Arts with a concentration in Painting. Del Rosario discovered her passion for art at an early age. Self-taught in her craft, she grew as an artist during high school and has event gone freelance with her work. She continues her artistic pursuits off-campus as an assistant graphic designer, an assistant teacher for local art classes and a freelancer. She is also active in other activities, such as Model U.N, Academic Decathlon and Speech and Debate.
Karen Jiang
As a child, Jiang’s parents never sent her to learn art because they never imagined that their daughter would one day be inspired to actually become an artist. With only a pencil, an eraser and a few tubes of paint, Jiang worked tirelessly her junior year to create her art portfolio while balancing a challenging school work load, sports and her role as the Yearbook club’s co-editor-in-chief. She has been recognized with various art awards such as a Gold Key art portfolio as well as Gold Key, Silver Key and Honorable Mention for individual pieces from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards; a two-time Celebrating Art published artist and poet; and local exhibitor in her Michigan town by the Friends of the Arts Association in Michigan. One of her most noted accomplishments, however, was her leadership in the creation of a mural for Brooke’s Dream and Children’s Hospital of Michigan, where her fellow peers and Karen designed a privacy curtain for use in the hospital’s treatment rooms, creating a more child-friendly environment for young patients undergoing extreme procedures.
Rialin Jose
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Rialin Jose has always been passionate about art and has immersed herself in it ever since she learned how to hold a pencil. In spite of her Filipino parents’ expectations to pursue a career in medicine, Jose continued to experiment and work with different mediums of art, eventually focusing on her love of film, inspired in particular by the short films and sketches online of YouTube channel Wong Fu Productions. Now a recent summa cum laude graduate of Lane Tech College Prep, she will attend Columbia College Chicago to pursue her dreams. Among her many accomplishments, Jose entered and won Scenarios USA’s “You’ve Got To Do Something!” short film contest, founded her school’s first film club; contributed to the “Chicago Tribune”’s teen publication “The Mash”; recognized as Chicago’s 2014 Female Leader in Media in the annual “18 Under 18” contest; received two New Media awards; won second place in the AATSP’s Chicago Chapter Poster Design Contest; received a Silver Key Award from the 2015 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Contest; inducted into the National Honor Society and later invited to join Columbia College’s Honors Program.
Trilina Mai
Since the age of five, Trilina Mai has won numerous local competitions for visual art and music compositions. Graduating with Honors from Cypress High School in California, she received several honors, including the Semper Fidelis Award for Musical Excellence, her school’s Departmental Student of the Year Award for Visual Arts, played trumpet in the Anaheim Union High School District Honor Band, redesigned her high school marching band insignia, and won “Best Picture” with a group animation shorts in the Cypress College Film Festival. Mai devotes much of her time outside the classroom by playing piano at te Vietnamese Evangelical Church of Long Beach, spending her summers as a United Spirit Association Drum Major Instructor and furthering her artistic pursuits. She is currently studying Animation at Long Beach State University.
Lauren Suh
Tickets to Fashion for a Passion range are available at www.againstthegrainproductions.com/events/ffap.
For more press/media information on the event, please contact pr@againstthegrainproductions.com.
About ATG Against The Grain Productions, Inc.
ATG Against The Grain Productions, a Dallas-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, promotes Asian American cultural awareness through compelling media projects and raises funds for international orphanages and underprivileged children. In addition to hosting outreach events, it also awards annual scholarships to exemplary Asian American student artists and leaders. ATG produced the feature documentary, Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam, which has screened at more than a dozen film festivals nationwide and received the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film at the Vietnamese International Film Festival and the Documentary Audience Choice Award from the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. For more information, visit www.AgainstTheGrainProductions.com or www.TheBabylift.com.
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www.AgainstTheGrainProductions.com/Events/FFAP
