Find your path to success with a diverse range of more than 120 degree, certificate, and continuing education programs.
“Contrast: Signal,” Rhys Pollock, 2025
PARAMUS, N.J. – Bergen Community College student Rhys Pollock has received the “International Prize – Universal Genius: Tribute to Leonardo da Vinci” award from the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, Italy for his “Contrast: Signal” artwork. An award ceremony will take place next month in Italy; a companion video exhibition will take place in New York in April. Pollock will receive a bound anthology featuring his work and the submissions of fellow honorees.
“It’s nice to have recognition for my work, and it’s always surprising to hear about winning out of the blue,” he said.
Pollock, of Hackensack, learned of the opportunity through Bergen visual arts professor Sophia Xinman Wang, Ph.D. while enrolled in her illustration course. Wang urged Pollock to submit his piece that draws its inspiration from the Japanese television series “Kamen Rider Zeztz.” Pollock’s work offers a redesign of the show’s titular main character through mixed media – ink, pencil and digital coloring.
“I am incredibly proud of Rhys,” Wang said. “He is not only highly talented, but also consistently dedicated and hardworking. Rhys’s international recognition speaks to the strength of Bergen Community College’s visual arts program and its emphasis on creative thinking, professional preparation and real-world opportunities.”
Pollock enrolled in Bergen’s studio art courses to gain the necessary prerequisites to apply to art therapy graduate programs. His work has also appeared in “2025 Create Tomorrow: Bergen Institute for the Creative Arts Gala.”
Based in Paramus, Bergen Community College (www.bergen.edu), a public two-year coeducational college, enrolls more than 24,000 students at locations in Paramus, the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center in Hackensack and Bergen Community College at the Meadowlands in Lyndhurst. The College offers associate degree, certificate and continuing education programs in a variety of fields. More students graduate from Bergen than any other community college in the state.
# # #