Student artists set to highlight blindness in major art competition
Budding young Central Otago artists will be bringing their creative talents to the fore this month – competing for a slice of the $5000 prize pool up for offer in The Great Bayleys Art Competition.
The competition – open to all of the 350 year seven and year eight school students in Wakatipu Basin schools – has a theme of ‘blindness awareness and guide dogs’. Bayleys is the principal sponsor of the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind’s Guide Dog Services.
Entry into the competition, and to view the artworks when they appear on show, is by gold coin donation, with all proceeds going towards the RNZFB’s Guide Dog Services.
Bayleys Queenstown directors Anne Rattray and David Murray hope the competition will draw attention to the services which the RNZFB provides to its blind and partially sighted members, to ensure they have the same opportunities and choices as everyone else.
“There are no parameters to this competition - so all entries are open to the imagination and creativity of the participants. We’re looking forward to seeing what these young people come up with,” they said.
Schools participating in The Great Bayleys Art Competition include:
- Queenstown Primary School
- St Joseph’s
- Arrowntown Primary School
- Glenorchy Primary School
- Southern Lakes Christian School
- and
- Wakatipu High School
Each school will submit four finalists. Artwork has to be put forward for display by May 28. Selected artworks which have qualified for the final stage of the competition will be on show at the Post Office Café in Queenstown in the lead up to the final judging and prize giving on June 3.
The $5000 prize pool will be split between the winner and runner-up schools. The winning artists from those schools will personally receive art supply gift vouchers.