Former Busselton resident Rose Barton has taken out one of Western Australia's most prestigious art prizes at the Cossack Art Awards.
The awards were held by the City of Karratha in the historic village of Cossack on Saturday with more than 270 artworks from across Australia.
Ms Barton received the Emerging Young Artist award for her work titled Nothing About Us Without Us, which is a reflection of the strength and inspiration she pulled from a group of young people who volunteer as national mental health advocates across Australia.
She said the painting reflected people who tirelessly advocated for a system that respected, understood and responded to the diverse needs of society and communities.
"I made this work after coming back from over East and spending a weekend with them, I was feeling so inspired by their strength amongst diversity," she said.
"They represented such a beautiful and diverse cross section of our society that is really true to the Australia we live in now."
Ms Barton said it could be quite daunting entering art awards as an emerging artist and it was hard to get your work selected to be shown let alone win an award.
"It is a huge honour," she said.
"I am becoming more comfortable with that the more times that happens in a way.
"When you do receive a little bit of recognition it makes every other failure worth it."
Ms Barton was born and bred in Busselton, moving away to complete an iart degree once she finished high school and now works as a regional arts coordinator in The Pilbara.
"I basically facilitate other people being artists," she said.
"I also do some work in the youth mental health sector as well.
"Being a youth myself it is an age demographic I feel comfortable working with in terms of being able to talk to what I know rather than going into a space and asserting myself, without necessarily having lived experience of that space.
"I am hoping to do get some more projects up and running in The Pilbara with some young people and increasing their access to the arts.
"I am really interested in that grassroots community level arts engagement.
"It is really special to be part of that with people, you really see people open up a different part of themselves that they did not know existed.
"It is a real honour for me to be able to witness that let alone take part in sharing that."
