Schools in running to be national art winner
TWO north Wicklow schools are in the running to be crowned the winner of the national ‘Someone Like Me’ art competition today ( Wednesday, December 5).
Last week, Marino Community Special School and Scoil Chualann were announed as the County Wicklow winners and go forward to the national final. The Minister of State with special responsibility for Disability Issues, Finian McGrath, will reveal the overall winner at Dublin City Hall later today.
The competition, which is supported by the National Disability Authority, aims to promote disability awareness and nurture understanding amongst primary school pupils. It also aims to highlight the similarities that exist within people of all abilities.
In their entry, junior infant pupils from Marino School created a colourful poster using paint and also incorporated some balloons. The work highlights that every child is different and unique in their own way. Teacher Holly Canavan assisted the pupils with their submission, which won the junior category in the county.
Tara, a sixth class pupil at Scoil Chualann, entered an animé-style portrait depicting a boy, which combined broad marker outlines with the finely textured surfaces of coloured pencil. The character presents a confident street-wise presence and his individuality is highlighted in the alternating colours of the irises, with one blue and one grey chosen. Teacher Inion Ui Ghiollarnaith assisted in the submission, which was County Wicklow’s senior category winner.
The ‘Someone Like Me’ judging panel of Caomhán Mac Con Iomaire, Mark Maguire and Ellen Keane were greatly impressed with the artistic efforts of pupils and teachers at the two schools and praised their imaginative submissions which were selected for being exceptionally insightful and inspirational.
Both Marino Community Special School and Scoil Chualann now compete with 45 other schools from around the country for the overall national ‘Someone Like Me’ award. The competition, which offers a range of prizes up to the value of €750, was open to all primary school pupils from junior infants to sixth class and 2,400 entries were received from individual pupils, class groups and whole schools right across Ireland.