WELCOME
WELCOME
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WELCOME STATEMENT
By Rebecca A. Stone-Danahy
Welcome to the 2025 AP Art and Design Exhibit
Each year, the AP Art and Design Exhibit showcases global student creativity, innovation, and dedication to pursuing meaningful ideas. The featured works represent the culmination of seeking, searching for, and discovering ways to communicate in visual form.
What makes this exhibit remarkable is the authenticity of each student’s voice. Every portfolio reflects curiosity, persistence, and imagination—hallmarks of the inquiry-based learning central to the AP Art and Design program. These artworks reveal how students use art to understand the world, build confidence, and make their marks as creative makers and thinkers.
In 2025, more than 82,000 students submitted an AP Art and Design portfolio, and research shows that these students are more likely to enroll in college and attend selective four-year institutions compared with peers who did not take an AP exam. College Board studies confirm that AP students—across all subjects—are more likely to persist through college and graduate on time, even when controlling for background and prior academic achievement. The program reaches a broad and diverse population of students, including many who are the first in their families to attend college. With no prerequisites, AP Art and Design welcomes learners at every experience level, providing meaningful access to advanced study through inquiry-based art making. Teachers guide students as they experiment, revise, and reflect—helping them develop metacognition, artistic skill, and personal voice. The result is a course that not only supports college success but also celebrates the essential role of creativity in shaping the future.
The students and teachers represented here embody what AP Art and Design stands for—rigorous, inclusive, and creative learning, where students take the lead in their education. Their personalized experiences and accomplishments reflect the best of what education can offer—opportunities to inquire, create, and connect through meaningful learning.
Congratulations to the students, teachers, and schools whose collaboration and dedication make this exhibit possible. I invite you to explore and engage with these remarkable artworks; read the student, teacher, and school leader statements; and celebrate the future of art and design education.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
By Jesse Wyss, Rudy Shepherd and Michael X Ryan
It’s always inspiring to witness the incredible range of ideas, techniques, and materials brought to life by the young artists who submit AP Art and Design portfolios. As we selected work for this exhibition, we focused on each student’s unique vision and the dedication they brought to realizing it. This collection tells a powerful story—one that invites us to explore how today’s students see the world and how they are discovering and expressing their personal voices.
The AP Art and Design Exhibition is more than a showcase; it’s a window into the hopes, fears, passions, and perspectives of high school artists around the world. It also serves as a valuable resource for art educators, highlighting the creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, and technical excellence nurtured in AP Art and Design classrooms.
We deeply thank the students, their teachers, and College Board for making this exhibition possible. The AP Art and Design program empowers students to imagine, question, and make an impact—and we’re excited to see how the 2025 Exhibition participants will continue to shape the world with their art.
CHIEF READER STATEMENT
Dale Clifford
The 2025 AP Art and Design Exhibition shines as a radiant celebration of imagination, innovation, and creative courage. Each work in this year’s showcase reflects the boundless curiosity and bold experimentation that define this remarkable generation of artists and designers.
To the students: Your work is brave, authentic, and visionary. You have translated your experiences and ideas into powerful visual statements that challenge conventions and invite us to see the world anew. To the families and friends who have championed these students every step of the way: Thank you for believing in their creative dreams. And to the educators: Your mentorship helps students discover their voices, and your dedication continues to expand what’s possible in art education.
Gratitude also to the College Board for cultivating a platform where young artists can share their voices with the world and experience the transformative power of creative expression.
May the 2025 exhibition remind us all that art doesn’t just reflect our times—it shapes them. Congratulations to every artist, teacher, and supporter who made this year’s celebration of creativity so extraordinary!
CHIEF READER STATEMENT
Lisa L. Kriner
It is an immense pleasure to be able to celebrate the talents of AP Art and Design students and to experience the extraordinary art included in the 2025 AP Art and Design Exhibition. We are thrilled to see such an exciting and wide-ranging group of artists and artworks, with ideas that are both deeply personal while also reaching out to explore the joys and challenges of our world.
This year’s exhibition showcases inquiries into personal identity and the performance of self; community, heritage, culture, and language; the body and designs that enhance the way we engage with our world; places both fantastical and real; transformation and reinvention; and empathy, love, hope, and growth. Materials and processes overlap and flow through the 2-D, 3-D, and Drawing portfolios. Film, photography, painting, printing, soap, cloth, robotics, architecture, metals, clay, and a huge range of found objects are skillfully manipulated and revised to make connections and explore self-expression. These student artists’ innovative ideas and ways of working through processes with material communicate the richness of their stories. Thank you to all the students for sharing your artistic journeys.
So much support and encouragement go into helping young artists reach their artistic goals. A huge thank you to all the friends and families who have supported and encouraged these artists. And to the educators, enough can never be said. Your unwavering guidance, advice, wisdom, and support have helped guide these students to achieve the excellence represented in this exhibit.
Congratulations to everyone involved in making this year’s exhibition an extraordinary success.
