No One Is More Excited Than This Teen Artist Who Has a Painting at the Met

Most artists only dream of one day getting their work into New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But for 18-year-old Brooklynite Cliffannie Forrester, that dream is already a reality.

The high school senior submitted an original painting, on the recommendation of her art teacher, to a student art competition called P.S. Art held annually by the Met. And the talented teenager was one of the winners (which includes artists from Pre-K to 12th grade), earning her a $1,000 prize and the priceless exposure of having her piece, entitled Uganda, displayed on the museum’s hallowed walls alongside the rest of the chosen works. But Forrester really garnered fame when her Tweet about the big news began to blow up; it’s received over 78,000 likes.

The painting is based on a photo Forrester took while on a mission trip to Uganda last summer, she explains in the show’s catalogue.

“Cliffannie wanted her subject to touch viewers and make them consider that black lives matter and that little girls matter, in any part of the world,” her art teacher, Maria Jimenez, writes of the piece. “Cliffannie’s powerful message was captured in this compelling composition and because of it, we are all transformed.”

You can check out the works of the other young winners in the P.S. Art 2016 catalogue, which shows that the future of art appears to be in great hands.