April 6, 2013
Wondai’s annual Autumn Garden Expo is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month … and the Wondai Regional Art Gallery’s April exhibition is ensuring no one forgets the Expo is on in just a few weeks time.
Last night the Gallery unveiled its latest monthly exhibition, the annual Wondai Garden Expo Art Competition, which fills the main and front galleries.
This year’s competition theme was “Native and Wild Flowers of the South Burnett” and artists from all over the region vied for the cash prizes on offer, sponsored by the Wondai Garden Expo committee.
The $200 first prize was taken by Kingaroy artist Dot Rowland for “Thistles”; $150 second prize went to Joy Carter for “Wattle”; $100 third prize went to Wondai artist Graham Mitchell for “Grevillea and Vase”; and the $50 people’s choice went to Proston artist Jillian McClure for a bush scene that had taken first prize at this year’s Proston Show art competition just a few weeks ago.
Highly Commended awards went to Daphne Browne (for “Yellow Flowers”); Jessica Elford (for “Originality”); and Mundubbera artist Sue Lederhose (for “Begonia”).
Murgon artist Lee Porter, who recently ran an eight-week introductory drawing workshop at the Gallery, judged the competition.
Gallery curator Elaine Madill said a film crew hired by Tourism Queensland would be visiting this weekend so it was likely the artworks would be seen by a bigger audience than usual.
Wondai Garden Expo Committee president Helen Young presented the prizes. She said that over the past two decades the Garden Expo had steadily grown to become one of the signature events that defines Wondai, alongside the Wondai Show and the Anzac Day Races.
South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann was then called on to perform the official opening.
He told the crowd that last week he’d taken a brief holiday at Daylesford in Victoria, a popular tourist destination about 110km north-west of Melbourne.
He said what had struck him about the town was that it blended art and culture with heritage to create a compelling experience that now attracted many thousands of tourists to that area every week.
These same ingredients were being fostered in Wondai with the art gallery, Dimities Cottage, the redevelopment of Wondai’s CBD and the restoration of the historic Wondai Hotel.
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