Joy Decelis is one of the winners of this year’s Sculpture by Me Bondi competition. Organised alongside the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition held at Bondi in New South Wales, the competition is open to participants aged up to 12.

Inspired by the exhibition, the young participants are asked to submit their own sculpture and explain the rationale behind it. Joy’s sculpture was entitled Mother Nature Strikes Back.

The young girl was inspired by the fact that people were not being gentle to the environment and that Mother Nature responds in various ways through tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and lightning. She included these natural disasters in her sculpture, using boxes, wire, thin wood, dirt, purple and blue Playdough, among other materials.

Many artists shared Joy’s concern for the environment and there were lots of works at Bondi that drew on similar themes.