THE words ‘fantastic rollup’ and ‘wonderful’ were used to describe the Goulburn and District Art Society’s Workers Club Art Prize on Thursday night.
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President Helen De Jonge was happy with the volume of artworks submitted for the prize and impressed with the number of people who turned out to see the show.
“It’s just wonderful the quality of art that has been on show, and it just gets better and better every year,” she said.
“I don’t know exactly how many people were here tonight, but it was a lot more than last year. We also had more artwork than last year, with 212 entries.”
The major prize winner was Tuross Heads artist Sandra Hendy with her work ‘Construction Jumble’. There were also four local artists, Kathy Hogan (1st prize, section C-acrylics) Ekaterina Mortensen (2nd prize, section C-Acrylics), John Saxton (highly commended, section C-acrylics), and Sandy McNamara (commended, section D-other media) who featured.
“I was very excited when I heard the news and it’s a lovely surprise,” Ms Hendy told the Post.
She is a member of the Royal Art Society and the Australian Watercolour Institute, and has been painting for more than 30 years.
“’Construction Jumble’ mainly focuses on the watercolour side of my art, but I also incorporated some paper collage into it as well,” Ms Hendy said.
“I’ve been experimenting with other media in recent times, and it has gone really well.”
Ms Hendy has been winning a lot of prizes to date, as she also won the Wattle Time Art Exhibition in Cootamundra in August this year. She has also won prizes internationally, such as the Excellence category at the Shenzen International Watercolour Biennial in China in 2013 for her work ‘Oriental Jumble’.
Mayor Geoff Kettle officially open proceedings and said that this was his fifth show.
“It’s good to see so many people here tonight and it’s obviously a testament to the quality of the artworks here on display,” he said.
“I’m usually more of a performing arts type of person, but in the five years that I’ve been Mayor, I’ve got around to a lot of the galleries and had a look at a lot of works and I’ve come to appreciate more the visual arts side. I know what I like, and there are some very, very interesting artworks here which I’ve taken a liking to. I congratulate and thank the hard work of the committee and also congratulate them on their 10th year.”