A Medusa head decorated in wrappers, a river of bottle caps and a dress made from chip packets. 

 That’s some of the work on display at Outback Arts as Coonamble’s aspiring and professional artists flex their creative muscle for the opening of the local annual Waste 2 Art Competition and Exhibition. 

 Individuals and group entrants submit art from pre-loved materials that might otherwise end up on the scrap heap.

 Students from the Coonamble Public School’s Maliyan Room took out the Community Functional category for ‘The Dress.’ 

 Their principal Annette Thomson said she is proud of her students' artistic ability. 

 “They love to see their work and their school displayed,” she said. “Our preschool made ‘The River,’ modelling it off the Coonamble river. So, our preschool kids have been collecting lids of all different colours and have turned it into three panels of the landscape.

 “And then our Maliyan Room has entered the dress made out of recycled foil packets.”

 Some waste material entrants used include cans, cardboard, Styrofoam and plastic bottles.

 Keeping in line with this year’s ‘Packaging’ theme, local visual artist Anna Kennedy said she went out of her comfort zone in ceramics to win the Open Two Dimensional category with ‘Believe What You Will.’

PHOTO: CPS year 4 Temprance Wrigley helped make a dress out of chip packets. PHOTO:River McCrossen

 “For me it was about how packaging gives the opportunity for food producers to tell lies about their food,” Anna said.

 “So, words like ‘natural’ and ‘gluten free’ and all of that kind of stuff misleading the consumer about the quality of the food when we know that packaged food is not healthy.

 “It’s on a shopping bag to make the point that we fill our shopping bags, or our shopping trolleys, with a lot of trash and we believe the lies on the packaging.”

 Coonamble High School Year 9 student Annabelle Harris won $100 in the High School Two Dimensional category for ‘Everyone puts on a different Mask to hide their feelings.’

 “I based it off mental health and tried just to get people to look at it more,” Annabelle said. 

 The exhibition remains open until 19 April.

PHOTO: Coonamble High School year 9 Annabelle Harris won $100 for her piece about mental health. PHOTO: River McCrossen

 Winners receive money prizes up to $100 funded by Coonamble Shire Council and will exhibit their work in August at the Waste 2 Art Regional Showcase in Parkes.

 Outback Arts Director Jamie-Lea Trindall said this year’s entries were “really colourful.”

 “It’s really exciting to see what people’s imagination can create,” Jamie-Lea said.

 Council’s Tourism and Events Officer, Maddi Ward, said Christine Young’s ‘Aegis of Medusa’ was a standout for her. 

 “It’s just very 3D, lots of materials and colours used,” she said. “Even some of the kids works, I didn’t realise it was students that made them.”