The Cerritos College art gallery held an opening night to the Student Art Exhibition 2025 in the art gallery of the Fine Arts building, where student artists won financial awards and showed their art to family and friends on April 24 from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.

As soon as the exhibition opened the gallery was packed with people.

The gallery was open for about an hour until the ceremony started with Dr. Jose Fierro attending to give a speech about the exhibition and to the art students who attended.

“It’s a fantastic event, this represents what we are as a community college,” Fierro said.

After his speech, the awards were given out with some being judged by Sonia Romero, who is a local artist and is a first-time jurist for a college art gallery.

Romero spoke about what she saw from the students while she judged, “I just think the level of professionalism of the whole show stood out for me. I know how much work goes into just getting it to this level, so that was very impressive.”

Some faculty of fine arts also gave out awards and scholarships to students with Hagop Najarian sharing what this event means for students.

“It’s pivotal…most of the kids that are already at this level move to UCs or Cal states and the art programs and they’re already prepped for that because the same thing goes on at those institutions,” he stated.

Two of the students who won first-place awards were Yajaira Sequesida Lemus for photography and Benjamin Hermosilla III for life drawing.

Lemus shared that she struggled to pick only one photo but picked one that she felt drawn to.

Hermosilla III was shocked to have won an award and only attended the event for his professor.

His piece hit close to himself which was about self-sabotage and wanted to make it known that people who are going through the same issues are not alone.

A key theme of the event was having the students show off their work to their families.

Fierro commented on what it means to have families of the artist there, “Having the families here encouraging the students to continue to embrace their work, particularly in art, I think is incredibly important,”

“Coming up from Latin families…they want you to do something that is gonna provide an income.

“That’s the misconception of the arts that you’re not gonna be able to make a living, but the support changes a lot of things,” he stated.

Director and curator of the Art Gallery, James McDevitt, also shared his thoughts on seeing the students with their families at the exhibition.

“It’s lovely to see all of the family show up and celebrate their loved ones, but also to see the students want to share their work with their family.

“That moment where they drag them over to the work, and they take photos of themselves with their work, you can see the payoff for all of their time and effort,” McDevitt said.

Victoria Garcia, who is a part of the art history club, showed her mother, Arabella D Garcia, her piece with Arabella sharing how proud she was of them.

“It’s a very exciting and proud moment for us as their parents to see them excel in something that they’re passionate about,” Arabella expressed.

The student art exhibit will continue to show off the work of art students in the art gallery until May 16.