Ringling College of Art & Design students' work to be displayed at upcoming Modern Pentathlon

SARASOTA -- When pentathletes travel to Sarasota next week for the 2015 Modern Pentathlon World Cup I, they will be traveling from all over the world. Like the athletes, five local art students' work will reach internationally as well.

Five Ringling College of Art and Design students' artworks were selected to be featured on the pentathlon's event poster, program cover, tote bags, T-shirts and mugs.

"Their works of art will go internationally, just as those athletes do," Katherine Harris, Sarasota Bradenton Modern Pentathlon Organizing Committee chairwoman, said Tuesday at the college's madeby Gallery. "We are really proud to get to partner with Ringling College of Art and Design. It's a remarkable school, nationally and internationally, and since the pentathlon is an international sport, we felt it was really important to partner with them."

Thirty-three juniors and seniors in two illustration classes at Ringling College were tasked with creating graphics for the event by including all five sports -- fencing, swimming, horse-riding and a combined running and shooting event. The five winners are senior Cameron Kramer, junior Kade O'Casey, senior Hailey Patalano, junior Kyle Beckett and junior Katherine Granger. Since Kramer's work will be featured on the event poster, she will receive a $500 scholarship from the Sarasota Bradenton Modern Pentathlon Organizing Committee.

"It was exciting to take a project and apply it to a situation outside of campus," said Beckett, whose design will be featured on a T-shirt.

Ringling College prides it

self on having its students get real world experience before graduation and projects such as this help ensure the students are prepared professionally, Ringling College President Larry Thompson said.

"I am so proud of these students and what has happened with respect to their illustrations for the Modern Pentathlon," he said. "The Olympics used to have a major art piece with it and that's sort of gone by the wayside now and you don't see much of the art piece with the Olympics and (Harris) wanted to sort of bring it back and help educate people, visually, on what a pentathlon is."

All the winning works were done in different mediums. Patalano, whose design will be on a T-shirt, said she used graphite and then scanned the graphite and digitally put color into the piece.

"I'm really just trying to take whatever the assignment is and do it in a way that fits my style and my personality when it comes to art so I wanted to make this piece very fun and very colorful."

The winning designs will be on display at the Pentathlon Village at Nathan Benderson Park from Feb. 20-22 and will be sold at the madeby Gallery at Ringling College from now until Feb. 28.

Claire Aronson, University Parkway/Sarasota reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024 or at caronson@bradenton.com. Follow her on Twitter @Claire_Aronson.

This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Ringling College of Art & Design students' work to be displayed at upcoming Modern Pentathlon ."