A Co Longford student has won the €2,000 top prize in Ireland's premier art competition for young people. Rose Toolan, Loughill, Coolarty, a pupil at Templemichael College, Longford, took first place in category A (16 to 18 years) at the Texaco Children's Art Competition.
Her painting, San Francisco Kaleidoscope, uses vigorous colour brushmarks to portray a dramatic sunlit seascape with waves breaking across a rocky shoreline. "I just looked through brochures and found a picture and painted it," said Ms Toolan. "I couldn't believe it when I heard I'd won."
Artist and art historian Dr Denise Ferran, who judged category A entries, said Ms Toolan's work demonstrated all the qualities she sought from a highly impressive set of entrants.
"You're looking for a variety of approaches - texture, use of medium, but also, you want it to express the children's thought and vision in as simple a form as possible. Hers is very subtle. It's very hard to do. The simpler it looks, the harder it is to do."
First prize in category B (14 to 15 years) was awarded to Mantas Poderys (15) from Letterkenny national school, Co Donegal, whose striking Gone for Lunch renders in contrasting red and green tones a pastoral landscape dominated in the foreground by an empty tractor cab.
The judges praised his clever use of recession and his accomplished handing of difficult subject matter.
Mantas, who has been living in Letterkenny with his family since they arrived from Lithuania some 18 months ago, told how he painted his entry. "It took me about two months to do, but I wasn't doing it every day."
The 52nd year of the Texaco Children's Art Competition drew more than 30,000 entrants.
Previous winners include former Labour Party leader Ruairí Quinn, painters Robert Ballagh and Graham Knuttel, and novelist Clare Boylan.