Sky not the limit for this artist

CLASS ART Hetty Lawlor (sixth from the left) with some of her art classmates at the Sacred Heart School.

Áine Ryan

YOU could say she has reached for the sky with an art award that has naturally overshadowed her upcoming Leaving Cert exams – for the moment anyway. It is only fair though that 18-year-old Hetty Lawlor, a student at the Sacred Heart  School, Westport, was allowed to stop swotting while being a finalist in the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2018 last week. Her painting of Scottish singer-songwriter Emili Sandé proved easily the most popular for the audience of the show but the judges went for Samira Addo as the overall winner of the coveted prize, with Hetty and Danny Howes the runners-up.
The finalists had also been given three commissions to paint in their own time, with Hetty Lawlor choosing to paint a portrait of former Spice Girl, Geri Horner, for the British Music Experience.
It is some months since the judges of Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Year were ‘captivated’ by a portrait of her younger self by Hetty Lawlor. But then, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree, her father is the well-known artist, Jimmy Lawlor, whose quirky imagination has ensured his distinctive style, broad appeal and huge success.
Although, while Hetty’s first love, as a child, may have been for animals, it quickly developed into a passion for drawing them from memory.
Interestingly, she used coloured pencils and not paints for her award-winning portraits, which many of the snobs in the ‘higher echelons’ of the British art world may have pooh-poohed – but to little avail.
Hetty’s early interest in art may have been inspired by her talented father – who sometimes was invited in to her primary school in Myna to give classes – but it was also honed through entering the long-running Texaco Children’s Art Competition.
While never attending formal drawing classes, she did attend some ‘fun’ art classes with her Dad’s friend, Tom O’Flynn. Her secondary school art teacher, Olivia McHale also encouraged some life-drawing with Transition Year students sometimes sitting for Hetty and ‘the art friends’.
“We have most likely used up our quota of the word ‘proud’ when talking about her here in the Sacred Heart School,” said Principal Anne Murphy,  “but it is the most fitting reaction we can have to her immense achievement. All of us here in SHS look on in awe at her and wish her all the best for her future career, in particular all of her ‘art buddies’ in Ms McHale’s LC Art class.”
Back at the beginning of the Sky’s competition’s process when her self-portrait entry was presented to the Sky awards judges – the art historian, Kate Bryan, artist, Tai-Shan and Kathleen Soriano of the Fine Art Society – were ‘stunned’ by both ‘the detail and atmosphere of the work’.
Ultimately, the Kilmeena artist was one of the youngest ever to be selected from thousands of entries, both professional and amateur, from Ireland and the UK. Some artistic achievement.
 
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www.hettylawlor.com and www.jimmylawlor.com