By Emily-Rose Toohey and Dominique Tassell
School students across Stanthorpe celebrated 150 years of the town with Crisps Youth Art Prize last week, as the very best and brightest artists were able to showcase their skills at the Civic Centre.
Coordinator of the event and Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery director Mary Findlay said about 700 students across primary and secondary school contributed to the exhibition.
“A big thank you to the hundreds of local students who made the effort to be creative,” Mary said.
“We have nearly a thousand works and not one artwork is the same.”
The overarching theme of the night was Stanthorpe’s 150th celebration and Mary said tying the event into this was about encouraging the kids to learn more about their town.
“Every single student in Stanthorpe was given an educational pack about the town’s history,” she said.
This venture was also weaved into the school curriculum and overall, Mary said the event itself was super successful and that Crisps Coaches had been sponsoring it for over 30 years.
“We’re really proud of this event, it’s one of our most important events every year as it’s about our community, place and generation succession,” she said.
Furthermore, Crisps spokesperson Chloe Morello attended on behalf of the company on the night and she said it was great to see the children get involved.
“The best part about it is we’re recognising people who really excel in the arts,” Chloe said.
“They were all very excited – my children also participated, who are 10 and 14 years old.”
Chloe is part of a long line of Crisps and according to her Dad, they originally sponsored the event with the art gallery as a one-off venture.
“They (art gallery) were after a business who worked with all the school and they thought of us – we’ve sponsored it ever since,” she said.
Of the hundreds of artworks submitted, prizes were also awarded on the night and Chloe Temple won the senior Therese Burton Memorial trophy.
Chloe said she was very shocked and surprised but happy when they called her name as the grand champion winner.
“We’d looked at all of the artwork in the Crisps Art show and there were so many cool pictures and everyone had worked hard,” Chloe said.
“I love horses and art so found it really interesting to see how kids and adults travelled to school in Stanthorpe, 150 years ago – it’s definitely different to how I get to school today.”
Furthermore, Chloe said in honour of the 150-year theme, her class had spent time looking into the differences between Stanthorpe back then versus today.
“It’s been so much fun learning about Stanthorpe’s history,” she said.
“It took me weeks to research, plan, sketch out then paint my picture.
“We are lucky to have great teachers at Severnlea School, I’m very happy with how my picture turned out and I can’t wait to hang it up at home.”
In the kindergarten section, Jacob Achenbach took away the top prize and he said this win made him very happy.
“I can buy Mary (his sister) and Joshie (his brother) and me a lollipop,” Jacob said.
He decided to paint an apple tree for his submission as Jacob said he loved apples and Stanthorpe had plenty of them – he even decided to paint different seasons.
“Mum showed me the leaves go red and fall off and the spring flowers and then apples,” he said.
Results:
Grand Champion: Chloe Temple
Jr Grand Champion: Kiel Ciufici
Kindergarten
First: Jacob Achenbach
Second: Keira Salter
Third: Evie Muller
Highly Commended: Joel Kent
Prep
First: Billy-May Ciufici
Second: Zyah Sundara
Third: Polly Egerton
Highly Commended: Arno Diederiks
Highly Commended: Elysian
Grade 1
First: Andrew Whittaker
Second: Matthew Neville
Third: Harlem Drage
Highly Commended: Isla Denis
Grade 2
First: Alhue Parabere
Second: Fred Kneipp
Third: Max Moore
Highly Commended: Dakota
Grade 3
First: Eryn
Second: Darcy Skillington
Third: Indigo Kunze
Highly Commended: Domanic Winkworth
Highly Commended: Nicholas Rossington
Grade 4
First: Amelia Giacosa
Second: Piper Gunnlaugsson
Third: River Armstrong
Highly Commended: Riley Thompson
Grade 5
First: Maverick Foster
Second: Riley Gaiter
Third: Declan Giles-Duffy
Highly Commended: Siena Bell
Grade 6
First: Kiara Harvey
Second: Damon Pompetti
Third: Alexander Reid
Highly Commended: Mali O’Neill
Highly Commended: Jason Haynes
Highly Commended: Ted Bonner
Highly Commended: Sasha Kendall
Highly Commended: Patrick Scudamore
Grade 7
First: Patrick Roberts
Second: Olivia Favero
Third: Lottie Burke
Highly Commended: Frank Barker
Grade 8
First: Dakota Brown
Second: Ellis Lahey
Third: Charlie Chen
Highly Commended: Brooke Day
