Janelle Feng likes to recreate images from the French Revolution.
In her watercolour piece titled Robespierre: A Visual Biography — a work the Grade 12 student at Coquitlam’s Gleneagle secondary has hanging at the Art Gallery at Evergreen as part of its Emerging Talent exhibit — Feng delves into the historical era, showing three scenes of the influencer during the Reign of Terror, in the late 18th century.
Feng’s Instagram account, @smileyfaceorg, offers other examples of French historical figures — sketches and paintings of Louis XVI, political journalist Camille Desmoulins and Jacques-Pierre Brissot, a leader of the Brissotins, for example — all of whom also died by the guillotine, like Robespierre.
Last summer, Feng was at the California State Summer School for the Arts; she plans to apply to CalArts and Sheridan College, in Ontario, to pursue a career in animation.
Emerging Talent 22 ends Feb. 17.