Two Laois students win prizes in Texaco Children's Art Competition

Beth Phelan, 13 from Paint Pots Group Ballyfin with her artwork.

placeholder image — Beth Phelan, 13 from Paint Pots Group Ballyfin with her artwork.

Ballyfin and Emo young artists awarded in prestigious national art competition

Two Laois students have won top prizes in this year’s 70th Texaco Children’s Art Competition.

In the 12-13 year age category, Beth Phelan, 13, from Paint Pots Art Group, Ballyfin, won second prize for her work entitled ‘The Farmhouse’.

Laois student Beth Phelan, from Paint Pots Art Group, Ballyfin, a winner in this year's 70th Texaco Children's Art Competition. Pictured with her prize-winning work ‘The Farmhouse’ with her sister, May and mum, Marishe. The picture was taken at a function to announce the top winners held in Dublin.

Her artwork is described by Final Adjudicator, Gary Granville, Professor Emeritus of Education at the National College of Art and Design as “art through which the artist has captured a whole cultural experience in her image of an old farmhouse with free range poultry wandering about”.

In addition, Anna McCarthy, aged 9 from Emo National School, Portlaoise, won a Special Merit Award for her colourful artwork entitled ‘Teddy Bear’.

Professor Granville said that it ‘demonstrated high levels of skill and imagination’.

The overall winner of the 2024 competition is Charley Bell from Methodist College, Belfast - for her coloured pencil artwork entitled 'Anticipation'. She is the first person to ever win the overall prize for two years running.

The Texaco Children’s Art Competition is popularly regarded as the longest-running sponsorship in the history of arts sponsoring in Ireland, with an unbroken history that dates back to the very first Competition held in 1955.

This year, as has been the case throughout its life, it has been a platform on which young artists from Laois and counties throughout Ireland have had their talents recognised and their creativity commended.