Winners of Credit Union Art Competition Announced

Posted on: 25 Mar 2021

The winners of the Credit Union ‘Imagine More’ Art Competition have been announced via a special virtual ceremony broadcast Wednesday 24^th March.
 
Now in its 37^th year, the competition continues to capture the imagination of participants and is one of the longest-running competitions of its type. Despite the COVID-19 restrictions, over 30,000 entries were received for this year’s competition. Lockdown restrictions resulted in a slight delay to the announcement of the winners of this year’s competition. A special virtual ceremony, hosted by RTE broadcaster, Marty Whelan was streamed on the ILCU social media channels for finalists and their family, friends and credit unions to tune into. Marty ran through all of the finalists’ works of art and also spoke to the three art competition judges to get their thoughts on this year’s winning entries.
 
The theme for this year’s competition was ‘Imagine More’ and it encouraged participants to think past their current situation and use their imagination to dream about what life will be like when restrictions aren’t a large part of our world. This theme also aimed to reflect and display just how important the arts are in Irish society. 

Speaking at the awards ceremony, ILCU Head of Communications, Paul Bailey said, “This year, despite restrictions, credit unions have created a space where budding artists can express their creative skills while allowing them to dream of a bigger brighter world. While this competition is a huge part of life on the island of Ireland, this year it opened up a whole new way of thinking for participants. The immense talent on display shows the hope and imagination of brighter days to come. We are once again blown away by the truly amazing submissions and we wish to congratulate all the entrants, without whom our competition couldn’t go ahead”. 

Eleven successful entries were crowned winners in their respective categories and, in addition to the ten individual winners and one group winner, there were 22 runner-up and merit awards. Age categories encompassed 7-years-and under to 18-years-and-over. There was also a category for artists with special needs. The competition is facilitated by credit unions in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

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The virtual ceremony is available to view on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=T8x7BLebn9c

Art competition winners, runners up and merit: https://www.creditunion.ie/news/art-competition/previous-winners/