Students making art in their Howard County Public School System classrooms are getting a chance to exhibit in a professional art gallery at the Howard County Arts Council in Ellicott City.

Organized with Youth Art Month in mind, the “Defining Ourselves: I Am More Than What You See” exhibit for public school students in grades K-12 has a different general theme each year. This year’s topic of “identity” prompted art teachers across the county to give assignments that encouraged students to express their own identities in creative ways.

Among the exhibiting students from Dayton Oaks Elementary School, thirdgrader Nicolae Selaru used crayon, sharpie and tempera to mark up a wall-hanging figurative paper cutout titled “This Is Me!!”

Personalizing the generic cut-out figure are a number of written statements, including “I like art,” “I love mathematics” and “I am Romanian.”

Artists favoring realistic portraiture include Katie Marshall, an 11th-grader at Hammond High School. Her graphite drawing “Cathartic Scream” is true to its title. Responding to the same classroom assignment and hanging next to Marshall’s drawing is Hammond High School 12thgrader Hana Bramble’s graphite drawing “Analysis Paralysis.” Bramble presents a face whose intense stare is worth analyzing.

Acknowledging that an individual personality is anything but monolithic is Mount Hebron High School ninth-grader