Local student wins special merit award in Texaco Art competition

An Athlone student has won a top prize in this year’s 69th Texaco Children’s Art Competition.

Amy Zhao (age 18), from Our Lady's Bower Secondary School, Athlone was chosen as a winner of Special Merit Award for artwork that Final Adjudicator, Professor Gary Granville said ‘were imaginative and displayed high levels of skill and creativity’.

No stranger to the competition, Amy won first prize in the 12-13 years age category in 2017, second prize in the 14-15 years age category in 2020 and Special Merit Awards in both 2018 and 2021.

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 Westmeath and counties throughout Ireland have had their talents recognised and their creativity commended.