The winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 15th Annual High School Juried Art Show was surprised to be selected.
Ecole St. Mary High School student Hillary Dergousoff won the award for her piece, ‘The Sky in Bloom’. The award was sponsored by the Kyla Art Group. The winner was announced in June at the close of the show.
“I just was very honoured that I was chosen for this because I was one of the youngest people in the show,” said Dergousoff, who was in Grade 9 when she created the piece but is headed into Grade 10 at St. Mary this fall. “It was very surprising seeing how many other great artists were in the show.”
Dergousoff found out about the award win when her mother sent her the Facebook announcement.
Dergousoff said that she was encouraged to enter the show by her art teacher Tia Holash of Lemon Yellow Art Studio.
“At first I didn’t really (want to), but then I thought about it more and I made this piece that I put in and I decided to enter,” Dergousoff explained. “She helped me through that whole process of it.
The piece was created in a class at Lemon Yellow, which Dergousoff has attended since the art studio opened.
“I’ve slowly built up all the techniques that I needed to do this,” she explained. “This was my most challenging piece yet. I took it off of a real picture. Obviously the sky and the clouds was the hardest part. It took me many weeks to finish, but when it was done I felt proud, so I entered it.”
She said the colours in the sunset were the most difficult to capture.
“It’s like the sunset going through the clouds making these different colours. It was hard to do, but it turned out great.”
After winning the People’s Choice Award this year next year’s High School Juried Art Show is already on Dergousoff’s mind. She said winning the award also inspired her to enter art in other shows in Saskatchewan.
“I’m going to do some looking around,” she said. “Winning this kind of shows that like it’s not just a little hobby (and that) I’m actually good at it.”
The High School Juried Art Show ran at the Mann Art Gallery from April 16 until June 6.
