Six Mayo students win awards at Texaco Children's Art competition

Six Mayo students have won top prizes in this year’s 66th Texaco Children’s Art Competition.

In the 14-15 years age category, Sarah Mullaney (15), a pupil at Scoil Muire Agus Pádraig, Swinford, won third prize for a work entitled ‘Paper Face’.

Sarah’s composition is described by final adjudicator and chairman of the judging panel, Professor Declan McGonagle as “remarkable in the way she employed rolled coloured paper to capture a detailed likeness of her subject."

Other Mayo winners – all of which won Special Merit Awards for artworks that Professor McGonagle described as "imaginative and displayed high levels of skill” – were: Nicole Karl (age 17), from Sancta Maria College, Louisburgh; Sara Kozakiewicz (12) from Sacred Heart School, Westport; Niamh Devaney (7) from Ballyvary Central School, Castlebar; Maeve Gibbons (6) from Gortjordan National School, Claremorris and Aoibhinn McGing Cadden (5) from Gaelscoil Na Cruaiche, Westport.

With the onset of Covid-19, the competition had to be extended over a longer period this year with delays to the final adjudication process and the announcement of winners.

As a result, activities normally undertaken during April and May – traditionally, the introduction of winners to the media and the formal presentation of prizes – had to be set aside as a consequence of which prizes will be delivered by hand without the possibility of an awards ceremony.