PERSISTENCE paid off for the overall winner of this year’s Texaco Children’s Art Competition. Following merit awards in 2008 and 2010 and third prize in 2009, Keith Blake (18) from Ballingarry, Thurles, in Co Tipperary took first place out of the 30,000-plus entries in this year’s contest.
His self-portrait, A Warm Place, was selected from a broad field which included a view of Arklow Harbour, a 13-year-old girl’s take on the abstract art of René Magritte and a colourful bouquet of flowers.
What inspired his entry? “I just like drawing people and I like drawing from life too,” he said.
Keith, a student at Presentation Secondary School in Thurles, who hopes to study art after he sits his Leaving Cert this summer, received a prize of €2,000 for winning the competition.
His oil painting will also go on display at an exhibition hosted by the International Federation for Arts and Culture in Tokyo’s Ueno Royal Museum later this year.
“It’s pretty weird to think it’ll end up in Japan,” he said.
Keith was one of the 161 award winners announced at Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery yesterday.
Kerry Grimes (8) from Scoil Naomh Éanna in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, won category E for 7- to 8-year-olds with her striking crayon drawing of a bouquet, Flower Power.
Kerry said she had a “massive” interest in art and that it “felt great” to win the competition as well as an impressive €200 prize. “I don’t know what I’ll do with . . . I might go to Disneyland,” she said.
Juliette Morrison (13) from St Vincent’s Secondary School in Dundalk, Co Louth, said her entry Raining Men, which came second in the 12- to 13-year-old category, was her first go at abstract art. It featured a self-portrait inside a self-portrait against a backdrop of men falling from the sky.
“My art teacher took a picture of me holding a book of Magritte and I drew myself in the canvas on the book and then in the canvas again,” she said.
Judging panel chairman Prof Declan McGonagle, of the National College of Art and Design, said the level of skill among competition entrants was increasing each year.
Prof McGonagle said the competition was “nourishing creativity” among young people that would stand to the State in years to come. “We hear a lot of talk about the knowledge economy . . . and this is connected to what the future of Ireland needs to be.”
ART CHALLENGE ARTISTS INVITED TO CONNECT WITH CITY
DUBLIN CITY Council has announced a public arts programme which is designed to move art away from galleries and theatres and into the city’s public spaces.
The scheme, which is open to music, drama, literature, film, dance and visual art practitioners, offers artists an opportunity to connect with Dublin and its communities through their work.
Dublin City Council’s public art manager Ruairí Ó Cuív said he hoped the programme would also increase city residents’ engagement with the arts.
“The unique thing about this public art programme is that it also invites artists to engage with the workings of the city council, which is a wide pallet,” he said.
A city council spokesman said the level of public interest and sentiment in the programme would be gauged and that its funding “will be entirely at the discretion” of the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
Dublin-based visual artist Ailbhe Murphy said the initiative sent out a strong message about the importance of the arts to Dublin as a city.
“The fact the city council is actually making such a public statement . . . is really important and very significant at this time,” she said.
Information about the Public Art Programme is available from dublincitypublicart.ie
