By Rebecca Goldfine,Staff Writer

PARIS – Preston Haynes has targeted Wal-Mart, zoned-out teenagers, military recruitment methods, attitudes toward homosexuality and hypocritical politics in his graphic art, using the medium to perfectly illustrate his messages.

“I like it because you can undo and make things perfect,” Haynes said about graphic design while sitting in a classroom at the Oxford Hills Technical School. And by attempting to create these perfectly rendered images, he tackles matters that are imperfect, like “corporate greed and conformity.” And he does a bit of “anti-Bush” work as well, he said.

Haynes, a senior from Waterford, recently won a scholastic arts award from the Maine College of Art for a triptych he designed to fit the bottom of skateboards.

Out of the 1,000 contestants, he and 49 other Maine student-artists were selected to submit their work to a national competition in New York to compete with 15,000 student artists for $1,000,000 in scholarships.

“You’re also into deconstructing youth culture,” Haynes’ instructor Virginia Valdes said to him Wednesday. Valdez teaches the graphics team at the technical school with Richard Cormier.

In his pink-and-black sneakers and ripped jeans, Haynes has the casual look of a creative teenager influenced by youth culture. Yet, he stands apart from his culture enough to eye it critically.

The skateboard triptych depicts three images, one of electronic gadgets floating through the sky, with the words underneath, “Teenage baby sitters.” Another panel shows a deranged-looking kid surrounded by pills with the words, “Keep them down,” suggesting the over-medicated state of many kids these days.

Haynes said he hopes to keep studying graphic design in college. Valdes said she’s encouraging him to apply to prestigious art schools in Georgia and New York.

From there, he’s uncertain what his career path might look like. But he knows what he wants to say.

“I guess I am not very good at wanting to make things beautiful,” he said. “I just want to say something.”