Local high schools are invited to share the best work in visual arts from their students during the 2023-24 academic year. This exhibit includes artworks in all mediums, two-dimensional and three-dimensional. Exceptional works are recognized through scholarship awards applied towards a fine or digital art program at Mesa Community College.

Reception & Awards Ceremony in the MCC Theatre: Thursday, August 15 from 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Meet our CHROMA24 jury committee:

Karen Bell-Zinn worked as a graphic designer prior to receiving a BFA in painting and drawing from ASU in 1998. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and received the Outstanding Painter Award for her graduating class. She went on to earn a master’s degree in education and began a career as an art teacher at Washington High School in 2000. In 2007, she became the art department chair and was also given the Achievement Above All award. She retired in 2022, and continues to create artwork in her private studio. She has shown her work in a wide variety of venues throughout Arizona including a solo show at Trinity Cathedral in 2007.

melissa m button’s practice includes painting, drawing, printmaking, and mixed media collages.  her research is rooted in the collaboration of opposing ideas searching for the intersection of these oppositions as they manifest something greater and more infinite than the sum of its parts. early studies in architecture became the foundation for her interest in space and an awareness of constructed realities, discovering how chaotic and ordered systems reveal themselves and evolve within the natural world.  as an artist and a scholar, she is also dedicated to innovative pedagogy and implementing inclusive and diverse teaching practices, garnering invitations to speak at FATE-Foundations in Art: Theory and Education and the Thinking Through Drawing Symposium in London, UK.  button received her B.S in Architecture from Arizona State University and an MFA in Painting and Drawing.  currently she serves as Associate Director and Senior Lecturer in Painting/Drawing at ASU.

Born and brought up in Mumbai, and a resident of AZ for over 20 years, Shachi Kale is a visual artist, designer and illustrator. Her art explores themes of growth, connection, healing and inner dialogue. She also explores what home means and the beauty she encounters in her daily life in the desert. She uses watercolors, fiber arts, print-making and digital art. Shachi has had several solo shows and group shows around the valley and her work can be seen in public art in Tempe, Chandler and Mesa. She was an Artist in Residence at the Tempe Center for the Arts in 2022 and serves on the Arts Commission in Chandler. She has attended several art classes at MCC over the years and has been enriched and found community there. She also works as a freelance designer for MCC’s Institutional Advancement and Marketing department. You can follow her explorations and journey on instagram @shachidreams, visit her webpage at shachikale.com, or email her at shachidesign@gmail.com