Flanagan Art Prize winner announced

PAUL Snell has been named the winner of St Patrick’s College’s Flanagan Art Prize.

The announcement was made at the gala opening last Friday. Dr Vincent Alessi, the director of Linden New Art, was this year’s guest judge.

The college acquires the main prize-winning artwork and curator Wendy Sheridan said the initiative helps students imagine a future in the creative arts.

“It’s an amazing thing for the school to be able to provide its students,” she said.

“It’s a real opportunity to understand that there are careers in creative arts, and we do have a couple of former students on the walls in this exhibition as well as some current ones.”

An exhibition of 98 shortlisted works was on display at St Patrick’s College until Sunday 23 March.

The competition celebrated emerging and established artists across a range of forms and is named after college alumnus Noel Flanagan, former director and curator of the Australian War Memorial.

It was held annually since 2008 before becoming a residency in 2019, and Ms Sheriden said it is great to see the competition return.

“We had an amazing response from local artists so that shows the appetite for a prize of this nature in the region and there isn’t anything else similar,” she said.

“We’ve had a great response and lots of artists happy to see it back again.”

The inaugural Young Flanagan Prize and Clontarf Academy Prize were introduced this year to allow secondary school-aged students to share their talent.

Year 11 student Benjamin entered his work Encounter in the Young Flanagan category.

The piece shows a soldier’s encounter with a UFO, and Benjamin said he wanted to combine his interest in history, art and science fiction.

“It’s a good experience overall because you can see your work and almost sort of compare it to how others do it and improve,” he said.