Congratulations to Tahlia McCuskey who was awarded one of the five prizes at Tuesday’s launch of the Bendigo and District State Secondary Colleges Combined Student Art Show. More than 60 BSSC students contributed work to the exhibition this year and the standard of work from all of them was incredibly high—no doubt making that judgement of ‘the best’ extraordinarily difficult.

In describing the complexity of Tahlia’s work, this year’s judge, David Lloyd (Manager – The Capital Venues and Events) said her use of metaphor and symbolism to tell a harrowing story of trauma and displacement was deeply moving.

“Her painting was also of incredibly high quality and confidence,” he said. “It’s a work any third-year fine arts university student would be proud of.”

High praise indeed!

Congratulations to everyone who put their work ‘out there’ for public viewing.