In the Year of the Dog, Best in Show’s a real winner

MEDIA RELEASE

27 March 2018

Last year’s Waverley Youth Art Prize winner has urged local, young people to enter this year’s prize.

Michael Aroney from Bellevue Hill won in 2017 for his painting on a denim jacket described by last year’s judge Phil James, as a “standout work from a promising artist.”

Michael, who is in his HSC year at Cranbrook School, won a summer course at the National Art School and chose a course in welding.

“It was an incredible opportunity to undertake study at a premier art institution. I learnt a completely new medium of expression and a new method to communicate my ideas,” Michael said.

“It gave me the confidence to pursue my own artistic practice and develop my own style and ideas,” he said.

The theme for this year’s 33rd Waverley Youth Art Prize is Best in Show and it celebrates our relationships with the animals which share our environment, whether our pets or animals in the natural world.

Mayor John Wakefield said the Year of the Dog in the Chinese Lunar Calendar was a good starting point.

“We want young artists from across Sydney’s Eastern suburbs to think about their artistic responses to the theme of animals,” Mayor Wakefield said.

“Think dogs, cats, possums, unicorns, giant earthworms, dragons, flying foxes, hippogriffs,blobfish, Tasmanian devils, flesh eating slugs, sharks, snakes or spiders, pangolins and penguins.”

The Waverley Youth Art Prize is open to young artists from nine to 18 and offers over $3000 in prizes including art packs full of art materials. The major prize is a summer course at Sydney’s National Art School, offering an incredible opportunity to distil and develop a young person’s talent.

Drop off your artworks on Friday 1 June between 8.00am and 6pm at Waverley Library.

More information and to register your artwork: http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/youthartprize

Note to Editors: Michael Aroney is available for photograph and interview.