Timothy Hunter, a senior at the Academy of Arts, Science and Technology, took home the Best in Show award at the Horry-Georgetown County High Schools 18th Annual Juried Exhibition at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum.

In his artist statement, Hunter wrote “All artists look back into history for knowledge and inspiration when learning to paint. In this painting, I chose to look back to the extremely famous portrait, Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer. The model I chose for this painting has the same stance as the original model but is African-American. I chose an African-American model in order to put a modern twist on the Girl with a Pearl Earring, as it was unlikely to have a portrait of a person with dark skin during the 17th Century.”

This year, 302 works of art were submitted from 12 area high schools and 80 works were selected to be shown in the exhibition.