{"id":159657,"date":"2016-10-03T23:48:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T13:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=159657"},"modified":"2020-10-03T14:13:06","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T04:13:06","slug":"art-launches-a-big-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2016\/10\/03\/art-launches-a-big-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Launches A Big Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Phoebe Bruce from Wilkesdale with her photorealistic portrait of an Indigenous child ‘Annika’; Phoebe won second prize in ‘Any Other Medium’ for another of her works<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

October 4, 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

A near-capacity crowd packed the Wondai Regional Art Gallery on Friday night to help launch this year’s South Burnett & Cherbourg On Show Festival.<\/p>\n

The occasion was the South Burnett Art Competition, which is only open to South Burnett and Cherbourg artists and has become the annual curtain-raiser for the long weekend festival.<\/p>\n

This year the competition increased the prize money on offer from $4800 to $6700, thanks to the help of extra sponsors who have come aboard in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

And the region’s artists responded in kind, swamping every inch of the Gallery with 165 pieces of art, ranging from oils and acrylics through to watercolours, photography and ceramics.<\/p>\n

The exhibition’s two major sponsors – the South Burnett Regional Council and the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council – were represented at the opening by Mayor Keith Campbell and Mayor Arnold Murray.<\/p>\n

Mayor Murray kicked of the official part of the evening by performing a Welcome To Country and congratulating all the artists who had helped produce such a breathtaking display of work.<\/p>\n

Mayor Keith Campbell agreed, saying the exhibition was a tribute to everyone involved and paying special thanks to the Gallery’s volunteers for the work they had put into the evening.<\/p>\n

Compere Gil Smith, standing in for curator Elaine Madill who is recovering from illness, then took over the proceedings to provide everyone with an update on her progress.<\/p>\n

“Elaine should be back with us in the next month or two, and I’m sure we all look forward to having her back,” Gil said.<\/p>\n

After this a long list of awards were then presented to the winners and runners-up in each of this year’s competition categories (full results, below<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The major prize of the night – a $3000 prize awarded to the best submitted work across all categories – went to Roza Lear for her painting ‘Dusk’, which the judge described as “accomplished in technique and concept”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The painting will now be added to the South Burnett’s permanent collection.<\/p>\n

Roza, who is largely self-taught and has only been creating artworks for the last few years, said she was astonished to have won this year’s first prize and had never expected such an honour.<\/p>\n

Fellow artist Robyn Dower, who won last year’s Acquisitive, was also rewarded when her work ‘Reflection’ took this year’s People’s Choice award.<\/p>\n

After the official prize announcements, many of the guests adjourned to Dimities Cottage across the road for the Sample The South Burnett festival launch dinner.<\/p>\n

Others went to the nearby Wondai Hotel for an after-party led by popular Indigenous band Muddy Flats, where artist Rocko Langton – who won this year’s Indigenous art category – put down his brushes and took up his guitar to entertain the crowd.<\/p>\n