Celebrate Art Show

By Chris Pickles | Posted: Tuesday September 27, 2022

Congratulations to Year 12 Art student Ava Holland who won the Kavanagh College prize in the Celebrate Art Show

Below is her written statement:

“When I had to come up with an idea for my art panel, I knew I wanted it to be about my everyday life, and what better way to capture that than by using photos from my camera roll on my phone. My phone, like most teenagers, is something that is always with me and I love taking photos, not of anything specifically but more moments.

My artwork submitted for the Otago Secondary School Competition was a photo taken of my best friend in her car, a moment of independence I guess. This year a lot of big things have happened like getting my drivers licence and getting a new car, so it's only natural that we've been spending a lot more time in our cars. It will be better of course once we're on full licences as then we can drive around together but I'm a little way off that yet.

My art has definitely been inspired by my friends and you can see this in my other pieces of art on my art panel at school. This particular submission piece took over 30 hours as I ran out of ink in my pens a few times, as it is completely done in pen. My art is definitely not about completely a piece in a few hours, it takes a lot of time over many days and sometimes weeks before I am happy with it. As my art teacher from last year Mr Pickles would always say to me, "are you sure it's finished?". So now I know to step back, have a good look at it and really make sure I've done everything I can to make it a complete piece.”