The Theo Batten Youth Art Award is an annual $5,000 prize presented as part of the Higher School Certificate visual arts exhibition Out Front held at Manly Art Gallery & Museum (MAG&M). The award is shared among Sydney’s Northern Beaches HSC visual arts students chosen to exhibit in the annual exhibition and who are going on to pursue studies in the broad arts field. The prize funds can be used for expenses related to their studies.
The 2025 Theo Batten Youth Art Award has been judged by UNSW Art & Design Associate Professor Lizzie Muller. This year’s joint winners, receiving $2,000 each, are:
Jazz Hartmann from Forest High School for a painting entitled Fragments of Discomfort; and
Zahara Spring from St Luke’s Grammar School for charcoal on paper triptych entitled Nurture, Bond, Desire.
Muller also awarded the $1,000 Highly Commended prize to Charlie Heinrich from Covenant Christian School for Posca paint pens on paper entitled Childhood Memories.
Zahara Spring, St Luke’s Grammar School, Nurture, Bond, Desire, charcoal on paper
“These three artists identified challenges, and how they had overcome them through their engagement with materials or process. They showed openness to the ‘talk-back’ of their own artworks, and as a result, innovation and bravery. These qualities produce a feeling of depth in the resulting pieces – a sense that you are experiencing a conversation between the artist and their work. The ability to consciously learn from experience, and share that learning is in keeping with the vision of the Theo Batten Award, and it was this in the end that allowed me to select two winners: Jazz Hartmann and Zahara Spring, and Highly Commended to Charlie Heinrich.”
– Lizzie Muller.
Highlighting twenty-three artworks by Northern Beaches HSC Visual Art students, Out Front 2025 is on display at MAG&M from 21 February to 6 April 2025.
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