Carroll Newsroom /

Eight Archbishop Carroll High School students combined to win 15 Scholastic Art Awards, including three Gold Keys and one special award nominee, in the 2023 competition.

Senior Isabella Olivas' oil painting 937 earned a Gold Key Award as well as a nomination for the “American Voices and Visions Award”.  Each regional program nominates five students for this award, and nominees must have a Gold Key work with an original, authentic voice or vision, and the representation of diverse mediums, viewpoints, and backgrounds. National jurors will select one nominee from each region for the American Voices or Visions Award.  One of Isabella's other oil paintings, Sense Number 5, earned an Honorable Mention.

Two other Carroll artists, Emma Williams ‘23 (Solitude - Oil) and Ally Walls ’25 (Homerun - Acrylic) also won Gold Key Awards for their pieces.  Walls also earned a Silver Key Award (A Scents of Summer - Acrylic) as well as the “The Da Vinci Award”.  This award is presented by the K12 Gallery Board of Directors which curates the regional Scholastic Art Awards.  Each winning piece that placed in the regional competition is reviewed, and one recipient is selected out of all of the winners to receive this award.

Walls', Olivas', and Williams' Gold Key awarded works will go on to the National Scholastic Art Awards adjudication in March and have the chance to be displayed in the National Scholastic Art Awards Exhibition in New York, as well as the opportunity to attend the awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall.  Williams piece, The Freedom of Being Young, was chosen for the national exhibit in 2022.

“I am extremely pleased with the number of students that received awards this year from the regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards,” Visual Art Department Chair Renee Merland said.  "I'm very hopeful that we will receive another national award this year.  We have some very talented artists to choose from!"

Tessa Zimmerman ‘25 (Sprite Cranberry - Colored Pencil) and Harry Chen ’23 (Tranquilation - Oil) also won Silver Key Awards.

Samantha Yates ‘23 (How Time Flies - Colored Pencil), Chen (Ruins - Pen and Ink; Copper Heart - Pen and Ink, Marker), Zimmerman (She Stares - Chalk Pastel; Of Dust - Charcoal), Abby Noss ’23 (Birds of a Feather - Charcoal; Bird's Life - Oil), and Alex Moore '24 (Drawing in a Mask - Watercolor, Pen) also earned Honorable Mentions.