North Queensland

Title: Internal Bloom
Medium: Sculpture
School: St Patrick's College Townsville

Artist Statement:
Internal Bloom explores the tension between protection and vulnerability through the formal and symbolic juxtaposition of hard and soft materials. Inspired by artists Connie Hoedt and Marjolein Dallinga, the work investigates how enclosure and organic forms can represent emotional states such as safety, fear and resilience. Through wet felting, embroidery and resin casting, a series of vessel-like forms encase delicate resin spheres embedded with threads, suggesting hidden inner worlds sheltered by soft, tactile exteriors. Felted leaves extend from the vessels, symbolising emergence, growth and transformation. The work highlights a gradual shift—from containment to independence—where protective forms open to reveal strength within fragility. Internal Bloom invites reflection on the quiet, internal processes of becoming, and the balance between holding on and letting go.

Title: Cut Short
Medium: Embroidery on fabric
School: Townsville Grammar School

Artist Statement:
‘The sharp knife of a short life, well I've had just enough time. If I die young, bury me in satin, lay me down on a bed of roses’ – Kimberly Perry, If I Die Young. Cut Short focuses on the feelings of time cut short with loved ones who were taken before their time through the symbolic imagery of knives and flowers. It uses knowledge of floriography to create echoes of grief, remembrance and extinguished hopes within the artwork. Marigolds for grief, Forget-Me-Nots for remembrance and Convolvulus for extinguished hopes. Hundreds of thousands of people are murdered each year, leaving behind distraught families and friends. This artwork is dedicated to them; it is representative of how these feelings can grow and bloom from loss.

Title: Patched Parts
Medium: Painting
School: St Margaret Mary's College

Artist Statement:
Patched Parts is an exploration of the human body, texture, colour and how flesh tones react to light. It features various oil painted body parts, some clear and easily recognisable and others deliberately ambiguous to evoke curiosity in the audience. Inspired by the techniques of classic impressionist artists, a vivid and diverse colour palette has been used to depict light and shadow and visual interest in the flesh. I have used textiles that mirror tones found in the human skin. The artwork blurs the boundaries of materials and abstract form, producing a sense of harmony and cohesiveness. Patched Parts challenges the viewer's perception of what is familiar, bodily and real through the interplay of colour, form and texture.

Title: Degeneration of Our Generation
Medium: Installation
School: St Patrick's College Townsville

Artist Statement:
Degeneration of Our Generation explores the emotional mechanisms of fear within the human brain and its subsequent effect on brain waves. Inspired by artist Keith Sonnier's use of telecommunication throughout the body using light. What does your brain look like when overstimulated? Electro luminescent wire traces the invisible architecture of the human brain, focusing on the amygdala, the centre of reaction and instinct. My personal experiences were instrumental in developing research, juxtaposition of media and simplification of form in the symbolic representation of fear of the unknown effects on the human brain by artificial intelligence. This figurative representation of our brain metaphorically questions the effect of prolonged usage of technology and the associated long-term effects. Should we be afraid of the impact of AI?

Title: Wheels and Walls: The Ascent Unseen
Medium: Painting
School: Southern Cross Catholic College (Townsville)

Artist Statement:
Wheels and Walls: The Ascent Unseen is representative of personal context, of being a wheelchair user in everyday life. Experiencing how inaccessible places still are, my piece represents the disappointment I feel on multiple occasions where most places I hope to enjoy, result in being inaccessible. This piece unites the audience through a likeness and realisation, connecting with other disabled people, while also having able-bodied people realise how inaccessible the world still is. The use of the bright, turquoise shirt being worn, whilst the stairs pointing down towards the middle, draws the attention back to the person in the wheelchair as the focal point, in which the stairs create a loop that keeps the viewers’ eye within the work. Wheels and Walls illustrates the literal meaning, having walls on every corner and the wheels of the wheelchair. Whilst ‘The Ascent Unseen’ symbolises the non-literal meaning of unforeseen issues of places inaccessible.

Title: FROM C-DRIVE
Medium: Installation
School: The Cathedral School of St Anne and St James

Artist Statement:
My grandpa has always hoarded photos of me—I can’t imagine how many gigabytes of my childhood are scattered around our house on various hard drives. Over the years, he burned a number of CDs with these photo albums, labelling each one with its date and whatever part of the computer it came from, event I was a part of, or just simply, Xan. I experimented through a personal context and was inspired by Olafur Eliasson's installations exploring light and how it interacts with its viewers. Through this experimentation, I came to understand that each binary 1 and 0 of each pixel of each photo of my childhood, etched into my grandpa’s CDs, affects how the light diffracts and behaves as it projects onto the walls around it. These are the actual discs. The light is my childhood, and you are invited to experience it.

Title: Smudged
Medium: Drawing
School: Pimlico State High School

Artist Statement:
Being a teenage girl is stressful. There are so many pressures and expectations to navigate, especially when it comes to physical appearance. Smudged draws on my own personal experiences of being a teenage girl in today’s society. Through symbolic features, my artwork highlights aspects of modern beauty standards that can impact the mental health of young girls. The complexity of internal thoughts and emotions that come with the struggle for self-acceptance and pressure to conform is often overwhelming. Smudged expresses how it can sometimes feel that no matter what you do or how hard you try, you will never look good enough, or ‘perfect’. My artwork invites the viewer to reflect on their own experiences of being a teenager and the ways in which societal expectations can impact identity.