Climate fears shown in primary school exhibition

The children selected the theme 'Above, Beyond, and Beneath' and art education officer Linda Farrington said it was the first time she had seen so many environmental themes come through in the artworks created for the twice-yearly exhibition.

"The students picked the theme 'Above, Beyond, and Beneath', and we imagined that they would be making works about space or perhaps even time dimensions," she said.

"But the students have actually worked on things that are concerning them.

"A lot of [the paintings] have an environmental theme, a lot of them are about looking after our world - that we are sustainable.

"That was surprise to us, but it shows the things that students are thinking and want to express."

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Edie Burns, 12, from Invermay Primary School, created a work titled Let's Fly Away From Our Problems.

It shows a balloon floating away from a red sky, over the Taj Mahal.

"[The title] is really bad advice, don't do that," she said.

She said the balloon was a metaphor for the approach she saw being taken by adults in response to many issues, including climate change.

"It's basically representing flying away," she said.

"Every single day we have issues, and the correct advice to give is to face those issues and move on with life. But if someone was a bit of a ... funny person ... they would tell you to run from your problems."

She said had attended several school strikes for climate, but still didn't think she and her peers were being listened to.

"With climate change, that's definitely one of the main issues in our society - and at the moment, nothing is really being done about it. And we should definitely do something about it, because it's really serious."

Sakura Fisher, 11, didn't pick an environmental theme for her painting: she picked racism.

Her work, Elemente, shows three colourful female figures in different natural forms.

"It's supposed to mean that different people are different colours and everyone's different," she said.

"I want people to know not to be racist."

Mrs Farrington said she was always staggered by what the children came up with for the Art Start exhibitions.

"I love listening to interstate visitors saying, 'How old is a child who's in grade two? Oh goodness, they're only eight'," she said.

"And I think when you frame the works and see them hanging in a gallery you realise just how cool they are."

Eighty works made by primary school children for Art Start are on display in the cafe of the Queen Victoria Art Gallery, Royal Park, until June.