High School Student Art Competition

50th Annual High School Student Art Competition

On Exhibit: Saturday, February 3 – March 2, 2024 

Exhibit Hours: The 50th Annual High School Art Competition Exhibit will be on display until March 2. The Art Center is open Wednesday – Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and is located at 1515 Jersey St. Art Center exhibits are always free and open to the public.

Quincy Art Center is proud to announce the winners of the 50th Annual High School Student Art Competition. Submission for this competition was open to high school artists in grades 9th – 12th from 20 counties in the tristate area. A total of 99 works of art were selected from those submitted for the Art Center’s latest exhibit. The juror for the 50th Annual High School Student Art Competition is Nick Potter, Ph.D, the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the School of Visual Studies at the University of Missouri. Potter teaches courses in writing and theory for digital media. He is the author of New Animals, recipient of the 2014 Subito Press Prize for Innovative Prose. His writing and comics can be found in Ninth Letter, Black Warrior Review, Pank Magazine, Fourteen Hills, Caketrain, Bat City Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He has been a recipient of the John Hawkes Prize in Fiction, and recently received an honorable mention in Best American Essays 2015. He also serves as the comics editor for Anomalous Press. He has a BA in English Literature from the University of Utah, an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University, and a Ph.D in English and Creative Writing from The University of Missouri.

In addition to the competition, the Art Center also hosted the 7th Annual High School Art Teacher Exhibit. All high school visual art teachers with students who entered the high school competition were eligible to enter. The winner of the Art Teacher Award is awarded $300 to use toward their classroom to purchase art supplies, art equipment, or an art lesson brought to your classroom by the Art Center.

50th Annual High School Student Art Competition Award Winners: 

Best of Show:

Synthia Krigmeier-Scott, Painterly Charm, Fort Madison High School

Robert Lee Mejer Visual Arts Award for Creativity:

Madelyn Bradshaw, A New Creation, Payson-Seymour High School

Second Place:

Brooke Bergman, Ghost Diner, Hannibal High School

Third Place:

Gracie vonThun, Decomposition, North Shelby High School

Merit Awards (2): 

Aurora Shepard, Pollution, Hannibal High School

Taylor Trudell, Subnotic, Quincy Notre Dame High School

Honorable Mention (3):

Corinna Tipton, Tyler the Creator, Quincy Senior High School

Gracie vonThun, Gracie’s Room, North Shelby High School

Trevor Daggs, Barren, Highland High School

Great River Watercolor Society Awards (2):

Hailey Golian, October in Spring, Mark Twain High School

Lyndsay Twitchell, Hedera Helix, Greenfield High School

Special Recognition Awards (3): 

Brooke Bergman, Have a Smoke, Hannibal High School

Kaitlyn Spence, Irrevocable, Monroe City R-1 High School

Libby Goodwin, Divinity, Quincy Senior High School

High School Teacher Award: 

Steven Walker, Seussical Teapot, Palmyra High School

50th Annual High School Student Art Competition Awards:

Generous Sponsorship has been provided by: 

The Great River Watercolor Society, The Riedel Foundation, Bruce DeViller, Martha Didriksen, Linda Finnamore, Jerry & Gingie Holzgrafe, John & Susan Kissick, Friends of the Art Center, Robert Lee Mejer, George & Mary Nell Meyer, Margaret Nagel, Signe Oakley, Kent Schnack & Nora Baldner, Debra Scoggin-Myers, Tim & Karen Sedovic, Allen & Alison Shafer, Steve & Judy Siebers, H & R Snowden, Mr. & Mrs. Ronald J. Vecchie, Scott & Robin Walden, Zoup!