SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The Marcus Ashley Gallery is featuring the artwork of Lake Tahoe Community College Student Art Exhibition’s Best in Show winner on Saturday, June 14, from 12-5 p.m. Tatianna Mercurio won this year’s Best in Show for her thought provoking works, including one titled Wandering Thought.

“It’s a portrait of mental drift, and what it looks like to sit suspended in your own mind,” Mercurio says, who wanted to evoke the feeling of daydreaming, mulling something over, or even spiraling into overthinking.

The piece grew out of the classic self-portait assignment most art students come across in their career.

Wandering Thought evolved from her earlier versions, which explored the passage of time in a single image, inspired by David Theron’s works like Flux and Coalescence. Mercurio’s earlier works also demonstrate a love for animation, specifically “smear frames” that stretch and distort a character to portray quick movement.

While this earlier work aimed to freeze motion and distortion, Wandering Thought takes that idea in a more introspective direction.

“Instead of showing movement through space, this piece explores stillness through time,” she explains, “someone lost in thought while time flows around them.”

In addition to Best in Show, she also won Best in Drawing. Both awards, she says, was an unexpected honor for her.

“This was the first time I’ve ever exhibited work outside of class, so just seeing my pieces framed and on a wall was milestone in itself.”

The college’s annual Student Art Exhibition began not long after LTCC first opened its doors in September 1975. The tradition has long provided a platform for these emerging artists to showcase their work.

At this year’s exhibition, and for the first time in its history, first-place winners received “experience prizes” in the form of mentorships with established artists such as Shelley Zentner, Ali Warren, and Charlotte Castillo, along with gallery opportunities.

Mercurio, originally from Pleasanton, Calif., moved to South Lake Tahoe four years ago after studying film at Baldwin Wallace University in Cleveland, Ohio, and animation at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, Calif.

Tahoe was planned as a break from school, but Mercurio says, “I couldn’t stay [away] from art for long.” Mercurio continued developing her traditional art and film photography skills with classes at LTCC.

She plans on continuing to explore art and expression in whichever medium draws her next.

“Thank you to Marcus Ashley Art Gallery for offering this opportunity, and to the wonderful staff at Lake Tahoe Community College—especially Catherine Church, Kristin Boles, and many more—for making this possible. And thank you to my friends and family for helping me fit all the puzzle pieces together.”