A BIG 2018 is continuing for talented Meadow Flat artist Will Hazzard.
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After winning the Bathurst Arts Council Youth Arts Award at the Australia Day celebrations in January and being named a finalist in the arts and fashion category in the NSW/ACT Young Achiever Awards, Will was given a new honour recently.
He was chosen to address the official opening of Operation Art at the Art Gallery of NSW after last year winning the ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) senior award in the statewide competition.
Operation Art invites students from across the state to create works of art and the best are selected for display to brighten the lives of children in hospital.
This is the 20th year that the winning works have been exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Speaking at the Art Gallery of NSW opening, Will said he became aware of the initiative when he saw the touring exhibition at Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo in December 2015.
“I thought the idea of creating art that would end up in hospitals to cheer up sick children was a wonderful thing,” he told the winners and guests.
“I was determined to be involved.”
His inspiration came a month later when he saw a blue-tongue lizard giving birth to babies in his front garden.
Not only did his painting win a prize in Operation Art, but it was chosen by the Department of Education Arts Unit as the motif for T-shirts and other material used in statewide musical festivals.
Will’s 2017 entry of a Bathurst copper butterfly was also selected in the Touring 50.
Next month, he will unveil his solo exhibition Share The Earth in Dubbo.
“Winning Operation Art has helped me grow and continue to achieve and help others,” Will told the opening.
“I am very happy that people like my work.”
Will studies through the Dubbo School of Distance Education.
