The National Festival of arts is a celebration of art and culture across Belize, and today visual art was showcased in an exhibition at the Bliss centre. It featured artists from across the country ranging in age from 5 to age 50.

Artists utilized installation art, sculpting, graphic design, paintings, photography and even print making. We spoke to the curator Gilvano Swasey after the launch, and he told us that the artists are not only exhibiting art, but putting forth a message of hope.

Gilvano Swasey, Curator
"Being the national festival of arts, most of the pieces is screaming, fresh, young and hopeful. There are lots of colors in the pieces. There are series, so there is not just one piece that would send a message; there are collections from the different artists and then the sizes, a lot of them were huge and loud and that was what it is, what the youthful voice was all about in the exhibition."

Joris Groenendaal, Fashion Designer
"I ended up picking the pieces that were inspired by the clouds in the skies from a photo of one of my friends Jose Ruiz pretty much because the sky is the limit, that's what they say, but I prefer to think of it as the skies is limitless. You can go all the way; you don't have to limit yourself in art and in expressing yourself."

"They are out of this world, they are different, they are not commercial or mainstream. They are art."

Robin Schaffer
"How does it feel like to have your work displayed for all to see?"

Joris Groenendaal, Fashion Designer
"It's different because I've never done anything like this in an exhibition with fashion."

Kristen Matus, Photographer/Graphic Designer
"The first series is a photography series it's called "Seven deadly sins" and the second one is "Print making." The "print making" is a series and it's called "Regression progression." I called it "Regression progression" because you could read it from front to back or back to front, so you could interpret it in any way. It's a colored wood cut."

Conway Eiley, Artist
"Right now I'm using ink on paper. It's a new style and I am incredible excited about it. This is a glass pen and you have to dip it into the ink, it's very old fashioned and I had it for a while but I've never used it but when I picked it up I had this vision, so I just started doing it and it started revolving. I am excited about where it's going. I like to tease and flirt and use a lot of light and shadows and a lot of surrealism."

Alex Sanker, painter
"Basically these are two of my pieces that I am working on right now."

Robin Schaffer
"What is the medium used?"

Alex Sanker, painter
"The medium is acrylic on canvas. I've been working with acrylic for the last 14 years of my career. I love the medium and that's what I stick to."

"I started off with this one here. There is a lot of chaos going on and basically it's just a personal piece that I did and I am also doing a self-portrait of my son."

Ana Hita, painter
"My style is the modern and my material is acrylic. I studied art at the university in Iraq but I always use to paint as a child. I want to show the beauty, kindness and love about women because I think women with love can fix the world."

Gilvano Swasey, Curator
"It's something that everybody has to see. It has hope."

The exhibit will be open until June 22nd.

Channel 7