The Wild Art of Pike County exhibit at the Johnson Center for the Arts will open at 9 a.m. Saturday as a kickoff event to the art center’s Wildlife Expo also on Saturday.

The Wild Art exhibition will feature more than 100 works of art by students in grades K-12 in Pike County and the surrounding area.

Vicki Pritchett, Johnson Center executive director, said students in the wider Pike County area were invited to submit a piece of artwork that portrayed any variety of wildlife in the Southeast.

“We didn’t want drawings or paintings of tigers or lions,” Pritchett said. “We wanted the students to concenrate on the art and beauty of wildlife that lives around them.”

The Wild Art of Pike County student art competition is divided into five grade categories with first, second and third place and best of show ribbons awarded in each category.

“The teachers of the five students who are awarded ‘best of show’ ribbons will receive $50 to purchase classroom art supplies,” Pritchett said. “The winners of the student art competition will be awarded their ribbons at noon on the stage of the Wildlife Expo on Saturday by Troy Bank and Trust, our Wild Art and Wildlife Expo sponsor.”

What is so exciting and a bit unique about the Wild Art of Pike County exhibit is that it is hung among a large exhibit of wildlife taxidermy.

“Kristy Drinkwater has done an outstanding job of intermingling the taxidermy and the artwork,” Pritchett said. “The artwork is hung on the walls and the taxidermy is presented throughout the Gibson Gallery. When you walk in the Johnson Center, you feel like you are in the forest and among all kinds of wildlife from turkeys and deer to foxes and wild boars. It’s a different kind of art exhibit but, taxidermy is an art form and has a place in an art gallery.”

Pritchett said many children in today’s world have few if any opportunities to go into the deep woods and see and hear the animals that inhabit the forest.

“This exhibit is the almost like being there and we are excited to bring this opportunity to the Johnson Center and to showcase taxidermy which is a kind of art that many people might not think of as art.”

The Wildlife Expo will be from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Johnson Center for the Arts in downtown Troy. The Expo will feature a presentation by World Champion Turkey Caller and comedian Preston Pittman at 11 a.m., the chili and grill cook-off, display booths and the Wild Art of Pike County exhibit that will run through Nov. 14.

An admission charge of $5 per family will be charged.