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Opening of "Let's Hang It" a joyful event

May 15, 2006

Angel.thumb.jpgThe prize-winning works in this year’s University of New England School Acquisitive Art Prize came from schools at Black Mountain and South Grafton as well as from three Armidale schools.

The winners were announced during the official opening, at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) last Friday evening, of “Let’s Hang It” – an exhibition of the 50 finalists’ entries.

In opening the exhibition, the Executive Dean of UNE’s Faculty of Education, Health and Professional Studies, Professor Victor Minichiello, thanked all the finalists – and, indeed, all 332 entrants in the competition – “for bringing joy into our lives”. Professor Minichiello said the School Art Prize was a celebration “of young people’s talent in rural and regional Australia”, and “of art itself as an important way of expressing who we are”. He thanked NERAM for making the public exhibition possible.

He explained that the competition had begun two years ago, at the suggestion of Frances Alter (UNE’s Lecturer in Art Education), as an expression of the University’s involvement in the wider community. The number of entries in this – the third annual School Art Prize – was double that of the first year, he said. Entries had come from 29 schools over a large area of NSW, stretching as far north as the Queensland border.

Ms Alter and Mrs Ann Pettigrew presented cheques to the winners and a Certificate of Distinction to each of the finalists. The prize-winners also received items donated by the school and university art suppliers S&S Creativity Unlimited.

The winner of the Infants’ prize ($50) was Amanda Callagher, who is in Kindergarten at South Grafton Infants School. Ms Alter said the judge – well-known New England artist Fay Porter – had commended Amanda’s work (titled “Acrobatic Angel”) for its “exuberance”. "Acrobatic Angel" is pictured here.

Stephanie Graham from Black Mountain Public School (where she is in Year 4) won the Primary prize ($100) with a painting titled “Shading with Black” described by the judge as “a dramatic and very definite statement”.

A monoprint in the form of a portrait won the Junior Secondary prize ($200) for Joshua Moffitt, a Year 9 student at Armidale High School. “The judge was impressed by the total surety of this work in such a challenging medium,” Ms Alter said.

The Senior Secondary prize ($300) went to Stephenie Elliott, a Year 10 student at Duval High School, for a landscape in mixed media that Ms Porter singled out as “an accomplished and well-developed interpretation of its subject”.

The “people’s choice” prize ($100) – the result of voting by the large crowd at the opening – went to Kate Moore (Year 8, PLC Armidale) for her lino print of a dog named “Rusty”.

“Let’s Hang It” will be on show at NERAM till Sunday 2 July.

To see all the prize-winning entries - and more - go to:
http://photodatabase.une.edu.au/thumbnails.php?album=483

Posted by Jim Scanlan at May 15, 2006 03:36 PM