Since 2011, Spotlight has celebrated the remarkable achievements of student artists reflecting on one work in the McNay collection. This year, over one thousand students from 36 San Antonio–area schools created works in various media responding to Ian Dawsons’s Henri and Henrietta.

London-based artist Ian Dawson works with and transforms mass-produced objects. Dawson is a lecturer in sculpture at the University of Southampton in England. Henri and Henrietta are large pink and blue hippos made from repurposed plastic trash bins. Dawson is interested in transforming plastic objects because they are found everywhere. To transform these bins, the artist used a blow torch like a paint brush.

The McNay will showcase all 269 works of art during the Spotlight celebration in May 2024. Selections of inspiring student art will rotate in a series of three presentations through May 18, 2025.