Artist Name: SCOTT MCDOUGALL

Artwork Title: BIG SKY, LAST LIGHT, TENTERFIELD NSW

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 82 x 183cm

About the Artist:

My heartfelt response to travelling across our land serve as a powerful motivator to capture the essence of the Australian landscape on canvas.

Artist Statement:

The vast, open skies of Northern NSW, with their ever-changing colours and moods, evoke a wide range of emotions in me – from awe and wonder to a sense of tranquility. The late afternoon light elicits a sense of the divine or the spiritual.

Judge’s Comment:

In the shadows of this piece are hidden details and subtleties that envelop you in the tranquillity of the scene.

Artist Name: LORI PENSINI

Artwork Title: LITTLE WOMEN LANDSCAPE

Medium: oil on linen

Size: 130 x 110cm

About the Artist:

Lori’s art practise is an exploration of identity and placement within her ancestral grazier history and lived experiences on country. The exploration of matrilineal memory within her shared European and Indigenous lineage engages commentary around the simultaneously constructive and destructive relationship between wo(man) and land.

Artist Statement:

“Little Women' embodies my matriarchal rural women. Unsung but not without song in an unyielding landscape. They shared their stories of life and labours on the land with humoured pluck and taught me the value of remembrance, to know where you come from and to never forget those that have come before us.

Judge’s Comment:

Artist Name: ALANA HAMPTON

Artwork Title: SENSATE LANDSCAPE: EDDIES

Medium: dye sublimation on metal

Size: 60 x 100cm

About the Artist:

Navigating time, light, and space, using still and video cameras and HD sound recording equipment, often at night, my bodies-of-work employ a poetic visual language with the intention of moving between the real and sur-real. I use a range of media, enfolded, to reveal other sensate realities.

Artist Statement:

These places, where sensate experience invades representation, carry a psychological weight, weaving imagination into communicable form, uttering directly to the subconscious of the viewer. The meshing of light, time, spaces, and experiences from the local wetlands, bush, and estuaries, leave traces through photographic hooks to act as keys to perception.

Judge’s Comment:

A powerfully evocative image created with complex and imaginative layering across the composition. Wonderfully dramatic.

Artist Name: GREG CARROLL

Artwork Title: WYARRALONG II

Medium: Oil, ink, graphite and charcoal on plywood

Size: 60 x 120cm

About the Artist:

Greg Carroll is an emerging Brisbane based artist interested in exploring rhythms and patterns in the landscape.

Artist Statement:

Wyarralong is a dam south west of Brisbane. The creation of the dam has resulted in pockets of partially submerged trees looking like twisted bony limbs reaching skyward. The irony is while these trees are dead or dying their shapes and reflections of the waters surface create a vibrancy and energy. I find it both beautiful and sad at the same time.

Judge’s Comment:

The essence of Australian landscape is embodied in this work, through colour, the skeletal wandering line of various thickness travelling across the format. Sensuous rhythms and connections give one the sense of the artist's hand moving to and from in the creation of the design and thus how his eye traverses the landscape in front of him.

Artist Name: MELANIE SINCLAIR

Artwork Title: TRANSPIRE

Medium: Photograph on Canvas

Size: 45 x 85cm

About the Artist:

Melanie (Mel) Sinclair is a Landscape and Creative Photographer from Ipswich, Queensland. Her work focuses on the ethereal moments in the landscape, both large and small. In 2023 she was a Finalist in several art prizes, notably the Lethbridge Landscape Prize, Milburn Art Prize, and the Galah Regional Photography Prize.

Artist Statement:

Each layer is a stage of becoming, there's a path and while it's not all immediately evident, be patient, it will reveal itself. This is the long game. What will Transpire?! It's up to you now.

Judge’s Comment:

This work shows us that the Australian landscape is ever changing. The atmosphere is visible and the path into the horizon, a well worn s curve that is often used to orient ourselves in the landscape.

Artist Name: ANA ANDERSON

Artwork Title: PATH TO KILLARNEY POINT

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 78 x 60cm

About the Artist:

Ana Anderson is a contemporary Australian artist, she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2007) Honours from the National Art School. Ana’s work focuses on the Australian landscape and our connection to nature, exploring the line between reality and abstraction.

Ana represents the places of solace that she often retreats to, they are the quiet spaces where she finds connection to something larger, where she can escape and just breathe, they are the spaces between the trees. These compositions were created with multiple layers, tuning into the works in a push and pull intuitive process, creating a balance between reality and abstraction.

Artist Statement:

A hidden path, at the end of a sleepy suburb, in the Garigal National Park. Killarney point was once a favourite pleasure ground of the 1800's. Accessed only by ferry then, it was advertised as the 'Killarney of Australia'. A dance hall operated till the 1940's. The land changed many hands with a tumultuous history, including recent criminal activity, culminating in fire and destruction of the site.

Judge’s Comment:

Strong composition evidences a satisfying balance beteen light and dark while skilful juxtaposition of colour and shape leads the eye to the promised delights at the paths end, all supported by sensuous brushwork.

Artist Name: JANE ERICKSEN

Artwork Title: RED DOOR

Medium: Acrylic and ink

Size: 46 x 61cm

About the Artist:

Jane is a landscape and figurative artist who won the David Bryce Rural Art Award for 2024 and was a finalist in the Lester Portrait Prize for 2023. She strives to gain the essence of her subjects, inviting the viewer to investigate the painting further and deepen the mystery.

Artist Statement:

I love travelling to remote locations, particularly the Australian outback. This is an old building on Taabinga Station near Kingaroy. I was drawn to the sculptural aspects of the foliage beside the building, and the angular shapes created by the light. I wanted to depict mystery through the use of space, colour and shape.

Judge’s Comment:

A seemingly simple image in which the colour harmony and cunningly constructed composition all come together to give a tantalising air of mystery.

Artist Name: RICHARD MULDOON

Artwork Title: CIRCULAR HIGHLIGHTS 8

Medium: Oil on Linen

Size: 92 x 122cm

About the Artist:

Richard Muldoon is an awarded conceptual realist painter, living and working in Maleny Queensland. Primarily working in the medium of oil on linen, Richard explores the relationship between painting and photography, the concept of a photographic language, and the effect of the painted photograph on nostalgia and our emotional connections.

Artist Statement:

The Circular Highlights series extends an investigation into the photographic tradition and new ways of interpreting the landscape painting genre. The eternal moment. The fleeting but eternal moment lies somewhere between the snapshot nature of the photograph, and the timelessness and poetic sensibility reserved usually for traditional landscape painting.

Judge’s Comment:

This work evokes a landscape from the inside, where foliage interrupts our focus. This manipulation of depth of field brings the landscape into our space, the landscape is not something out there, but something that is very close to us.

Artist Name: HOLLY FIELD

Artwork Title: FAVOURITE SPOT

Medium: oil

Size: 55 x 45cm

About the Artist:

Holly Field is an Emerging artist from the Sunshine Coast. A passionate multidisciplinary creative who loves exploring her creative capabilities through the mediums of painting (mostly oils) and ceramics. As a mother of 3 and an Emergency nurse, her creative practice is soul work to balance out the chaos of life.

Artist Statement:

Holly's cat, Monty enjoying a peaceful moment in the extra golden afternoon light from recent bushfires in South East Queensland

Artist Name: DEB MCKAY

Artwork Title: IMMERSED

Medium: Ceramic

Size: 16 x 16cm

About the Artist:

McKay’s practice is rooted in nature and inspired by the repetition of formal elements found within plants and animals. The layering of clay in her work is revealing of the time and patience required to slowly mould, form, and engineer each work. It is this lengthy and cathartic process of building each clay work which is essential to McKay’s practice; speaking of a deep-seated personal need for meditation.

Artist Statement:

This underwater landscape embodies the ethereal beauty of the aquatic world. Each form and texture is sculpted to capture the fluidity and mystery of the sea. Evoking the serenity beneath the waves, and encouraging a deeper appreciation for the enigmatic yet vital part the oceans play in our natural world.

Artist Name: MAI NAITO

Artwork Title: ONEIRATAXIA

Medium: Digital Photography, Archival Inkjet on Matte Paper

Size: 60 x 84cm

About the Artist:

Mai Naito is a Japanese photographer based in Brisbane. Based on her personal childhood experiences of perceiving natural spaces through the lens of her imagination, she developed an interest in expressing the emotional effects of natural spaces. Through this approach she aims to encourage audiences to rediscover a deep connection between themselves, their natural environment, and the very moment itself.

Artist Statement:

Oneirataxia is inspired by personal childhood experiences of nature and visualises my memories of exploring natural spaces through photography and digital manipulation. By considering the role of photography and painting in depicting nature, and in turn, our experiences and recollections, the work encourages people to reconnect with the natural world through sheer visual pleasure and appreciation.

Judge’s Comment:

This saturated green landscape is a compelling and beautiful but also dangerous in the depths

Artist Name: JESS LEONARD

Artwork Title: HUMAN ROADKILL #1

Medium: Digital Photograph, archival print on 200gsm Ilford Fine Art Smooth paper framed

Size: 42 x 55cm

Artist Statement:

Left to decay, unidentified and unrecognized, roadkill is the unintended result of our ever expanding growth. Deemed unavoidable and accidental, it’s still a regrettable loss of life. For this work, in the place of an animal, an unidentified human figure lays face down beside the road. The unexpected change to human roadkill alters this everyday scene, attempting to disrupt our complacency and highlight our impact and influence on nature.

Artist Name: BEATRICE PROST

Artwork Title: BURDEKIN RIVERLAND, A VAST GARDEN

Medium: Hand etched unique print on brushed aluminium, aluminium frame

Size: 91 x 61cm

About the Artist:

For more than a decade, Beatrice uses her own photography to encapsulate a current story and a sense of place. Now and here. On this unique aerial view of the Burdekin River the country is remapped by patiently and meticulously hand carving the alumimnium to emphasise our sense of greed.

Artist Statement:

Beatrice uses her own photography to encapsulate a current story and a sense of place. On this aerial view of the Burdekin River the country is remapped. The mighty river is reduced to a trickle. Humans seem to have won this battle. Not one acre is kept un-turned. Till the next flood?

Judge’s Comment:

A highly divided piece in elements yet holds so well together as a unit, incorporating strong compositional elements with intriguing details and a good measure of aesthetic abstraction.

Artist Name: MATT JAMES

Artwork Title: CITY FROM MT COOT-THA

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 85 x 180cm

About the Artist:

I am a Brisbane–based artist primarily interested in landscape painting and drawing. Having grown up in rural West Wales my love of the outdoors is a key driver of my work. My paintings are based on pencil and oil sketches created in situ, from photographs, and my recollection of the location. My work represents actual places but is often constructed from memory and my impression of the environment. I am interested in exploring the shape of the landscape, the movement of clouds, the perception of distance, and the shifting of the light. Experimentation with mark-making is important to my work – I use brushes and palette knife strokes to represent direction, movement and focus to influence how the audience views the work. Contrasts in paint texture and thickness add visual interest and allow me to move between figurative and abstract representation.

Artist Statement:

The view of Brisbane city from Mt Coot-tha is iconic. It is a well-known and beloved view that offers a perfect vantage point to survey the city. I wanted to create an ambitious piece for this year's Lethbridge Landscape Prize and this view presented the challenge I was looking for. The resulting piece is my largest artwork to date. Rather than trying to reproduce every detail, my approach was to create a sense of place, scale, and complexity. The mark-making is intentionally loose and abstract when viewed up close, but as you move away, the panoramic view comes together. My goal was to capture Brisbane's ever-evolving and shifting nature, always in a state of flux.

Artist Name: ALEXANDRA L MATTHEWS

Artwork Title: VICTORIA AND HER GRACES

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 80 x 105cm

About the Artist:

Alexandra’s journey in urban landscape painting depicts an intimacy with her local inner-city suburbs of Brisbane, as a walking pace unfurls streetscapes. Highly detailed, she strives to depict architectural features accurately while encapsulating the essence of the iconic area. Light plays an important role, delineating the strong repetition of colonial architectural features. Capturing views authentically, her paintings uncover the hidden splendour of the familiar and a sense of place.

Artist Statement:

Turning a corner at dusk, pinkish light and long shadows fall across Kelvin Grove. In the hotchpotch of suburban renewal, this view retains much of the integrity of a century past. Lives lived, as generations before, in close-knit, inner-city cottages, clinging to hills but divided by shadows. Quiet streets beckon a journey as windows peer towards the viewer. Now open, windows release the heat of the day while whirly birds spin.

“…The place you come from is always the most exotic place you'll ever encounter because it is the only place where you recognise how many secrets and mysteries there are…”
― David Malouf

Artist Name: KAREN BROCK

Artwork Title: VISCERAL OASIS

Medium: Artist Oils

Size: 33 x 33cm

About the Artist:

My current practice includes a series of night landscapes that extends my fascination with colour and composition and facilitates my exploration of colour value. Painted from observation in darkness, with a small headlamp and a compressed palette, I draw on memory, recall and creativity. The sense of urgency in painting this way can result in naïve and only vaguely recognisable shapes. Ideally though the paintings are a nostalgic and atmospheric scene that invite the viewer to recall familiar night landscapes from their own experiences.

Artist Statement:

I began this painting en plein air at the end of another scorching Summers day. With the cool evening air, nature became vast darkness before me, a neighbour’s light bringing drama to the shadowy scene. The pool’s sapphire expanse beckoned a cooling respite from the heat. On return, I’ve utilised recall and photographic imagery to complete the painting.

Artist Name: GARY ABKIN

Artwork Title: AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE, RIDER ON THE RANGE

Medium: Oil based enamel on plywood

Size: 124 x 94cm

About the Artist:

Artist from California living and painting in Australia.

Artist Statement:

One of a number of works in a series of Australian landscape paintings.

Artist Name: SALLY GLOVER

Artwork Title: BELLADONNA SHACK

Medium: Oil paint

Size: 19 x 19cm

About the Artist:

Sally is a visual artist who works predominantly with oil paint applied in thick layers to enhance the depth and colour interpretation. Her work represents a romantic play on the everyday with a nod to sentimental memories. Sally experiments with mixed media, pen drawing and gouache to develop and grow her work. Sally finds inspiration from the complexities of colour, the play of light and the manipulation of form.

Artist Statement:

‘Belladonna shack’ is a joyous interpretation of a sentimental Australian icon – the ‘shack’. The thick layers of oil paint create a lusciously warm depth to the work - combined with soft summer colours harks to a time and memories past. This intuitive response embodies spontaneity yet is considered and structured.

Artist Name: TODD SIMPSON

Artwork Title: OVERLAND TRACK

Medium: Painting, Airbrushed Acrylic on Aluminum

Size: 76 x 61cm

About the Artist:

Todd Simpson is a contemporary realist artist based in Melbourne whose paintings have been exhibited nationally. Through his art, he endeavours to convey everyday beauty that is often overlooked in the midst of our busy lives. Working in the fields of portraiture and landscape, he most often employs airbrushes.

Artist Statement:

My painting captures the delicate balance between vibrant life and fading memory in Tasmania's Overland Track. Vibrant moss-covered rocks foreground the scene, while a monochromatic backdrop symbolizes the encroaching threats of bushfires, deforestation, and climate change. Through contrast, it reminds us of the fragility and impermanence of our natural wonders.

Judge’s Comment:

A complex composition, with great control of his chosen medium. Details are kept in a delicate balance with the tonality, forming a compelling final image.

Artist Name: LARS VESTER

Artwork Title: ECHOES OF SILENCE (GOLDEN BEACH, SUNSHINE COAST QLD.)

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 76 x 152cm

About the Artist:

My work is often constructed from memory and past impressions of the environment, with a particular focus on expressing the moment through the ephemeral qualities of colour and light.

Artist Statement:

This piece is a homage to memory as much as a reference to fact. Drawing on my memory and past impressions of the environment allows me to paint more intuitively, and escape into another realm. Here, time slows down and a sense of spirituality transcends. Drifting storm clouds playfully orchestrate a symphony of hues and contrasts that echo across the waters below, like a silent sound wave. The place becomes a sanctuary, away from the noise of politics and conflict in our tumultuous world. All you can hear is the echoes. Echoes of Silence.

Artist Name: RYAN WILLIAM DAFFURN

Artwork Title: GRACE INTERTWINED

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 70 x 90cm

About the Artist:

Ryan grew up in the Redlands. He moved to Sydney to complete Fine art studies at the Julian Ashton Art School. He has travelled extensively in Europe for art research and was based for some years in Leipzig, Germany. In 2018 Ryan returned to Brisbane to paint full time.

Artist Statement:

This painting is part of a series which reflects on a creative world shared by two artists. They are focused at work, silhouetted against a saturating Brisbane light. This is the first painting where I experimented with Lapis Lazuli blue paint, made from a semi-precious stone sourced from Afghanistan.

Judge’s Comment:

This is a complex composition. A strong vertical divides the composition centrally. Two different pot plants flank this central divide, in the foreground are two figures, one occupied kneeling while the woman seated is half turned away looking at a book on the table. The figures are situated out of the sun with the luxuriant foliage brightly lit behind them. The composition is unusual but works, the whole ambience giving off an air of tension, and the viewer pause for thought. Beautifully understood through colour and tonal juxtaposition.

Artist Name: DAVE GROOM

Artwork Title: THE MOLTEN POOL

Medium: oil on canvas

Size: 80 x 126cm

About the Artist:

Dave Groom lives and works on the edge of Lamington National Park. Here he observes the natural landscape on a daily basis and often paints this landscape from memory, focusing on the atmosphere and energy of the natural world. He has been painting for 25 years and has work in private and corporate collections throughout Australia and overseas.

Artist Statement:

Molten Pool is a reflection on the ancient landscape that surrounds me at my studio on Beechmont. It's an extraordinary mix of open eucalypt forest and rainforest that has evolved over millions of years. The volcanic history and ever changing lifeforms are the central elements in the flow and energy of the work.

Judge’s Comment:

A somewhat surreal landscape interpretation, yet evocative of Chinese landscape painting. The trees writhe as they rise, seemingly out of nowhere, among lush foliage, and together these create interlocking shapes (both negative and positive) across the composition, keeping it all in harmonious unity.

Artist Name: NATASHA RUSCHKA

Artwork Title: GOOD COMPANY

Medium: Gouache

Size: 31 x 40cm

About the Artist:

Natasha is a Canberra based artist that paints in oil and gouache. Light filled scenes are the inspiration for most of her pieces as she likes to recreate its atmospheric effects in her paintings of still life, flowers, and landscapes. Her art is centred around painting as a practice from life and photographs, regularly painting plein air as well as setting up studio compositions.

Artist Statement:

A warm interior cafe scene, not because of the cold day outside, but because of the moment of human connection.

Artist Name: DANE BEESLEY

Artwork Title: UMBRELLA MAN

Medium: Pigment Print

Size: 85 x 85cm

About the Artist:

Dane Beesley is an Australian born photographer based in Brisbane. After graduating from photography college in 2000 Beesley assisted a commercial photographer before starting his own freelance career. In mid 2000’s he worked for Newsltd in Brisbane and then in Melbourne. Beesley’s gritty style and unique approach to photography steered him away from Newspapers and back into a freelance lifestyle contributing to magazines such as Rolling Stone. Throughout it all Beesley has continuously exhibited his work, published a book titled Splitting the Seconds: A Photographer’s Journal and produced a strong portfolio of photography.

Artist Statement:

Umbrella Man explores urban isolation amidst a stark cityscape. The lone businessman, shielded from the sun yet bathed in its light, reflects a yearning for comfort within the concrete jungle. The open umbrella becomes a symbol of both protection and a slight defiance against the relentless rhythm of the city.

Judge’s Comment:

This work has great formal qualities capturing and creating an iconic image of Brisbane city. The flatness of the fence against the sky and the building is enhanced by the silhouette and shadow of the businessman and the umbrella. This representation of a hot flatness places this Work squarely within an Australian art history of representing the landscape.

Artist Name: LOUISE WALDER

Artwork Title: LAKE ORR, ROUTE 754

Medium: Mixed media on canvas

Size: 92 x 87cm

About the Artist:

I create contemporary artworks, representational of the time we currently live in. My attention is drawn to the rediscovery of the ordinary in the everyday. I’m inspired by textural differences between nature and artifice and the spatial relationships and forms created.

Artist Statement:

During the day, Bermuda Street is a busy location, a stream of constant traffic. As night falls so does the pace of vehicles. By highlighting the unoccupied bus terminal, which suggests a place commuters frequent, I hope to evoke the tension and disquiet that nightfall can bring to a landscape.

Judge’s Comment:

This works captures the ghostly presence of the night time bus station a beacon in the landscape.

Artist Name: KATHERINE CARSON

Artwork Title: WHAT "LIES" BENEATH

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 80 x 80cm

About the Artist:

I wait for the moment in the landscape when light and atmosphere become other worldly, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. I dance between realism and impressionism, putting into play my knowledge of colour, value, design and drawing, evoking the transient magic of the natural world.

Artist Statement:

The sea and ominous cliffs roar and tell a foreboding tale as the sun sets on our chance to reverse the environmental damage that the salmon industry causes in Tasmania. My works portrays the contrast of the beauty of the stunning coastline with a glimpse of what truly lies beneath.

Artist Name: SOPHIE BRAY

Artwork Title: CLOUDS OF SONG

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 51 x 51cm

About the Artist:

I am interested in the ability of natural forces to act as symbols of the ‘unseen’. My painting practice reflects upon the dual nature of the environment, both its resilience and fragility. The transparent layers of pigments echoing the jewel like nature of the rocks, reflections and light of the land.

Artist Statement:

The sun was setting and the birds were rushing around like clouds of song. Everything was a glow. Clouds of song is a translation of my experience at Fowlers Gap in the arid zone of the NSW desert, Wilyakali country. There was red earth, purple rocks, pink skies and a thousand eyes.

Artist Name: ANDREW STATTMANN

Artwork Title: POWER LINES, ROAD AND SHRUBBERY (COLLAGE)

Medium: Collage, Ink and acrylic

Size: 68 x 98cm

About the Artist:

Andrew has been an Adelaide Hills resident for 26 years, primarily drawing landscapes but also interiors and still lifes. Recently he has been enjoying recycling some of his own artworks that were a bit pedestrian in order to make something better from them. Graduated from North Adelaide School of Art in 1998. that

Artist Statement:

This work was designed to be viewed at a distance of around 9 metres (optical blending) and is made from recycled landscape drawings.

Artist Name: PETER TANKEY

Artwork Title: TWO WORLDS #3

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: 60 x 50cm

About the Artist:

Working from his studio in Ballarat, Victoria - Peter Tankey’s work straddles both landscape and still life genre. A realist painter - his intention is to create works that draw attention to the often unseen or overlooked aspects of our environment or ourselves.

Artist Statement:

This work looks at the interplay between landscape and the outsider's perspective, delving into the nuances of observing from afar. Landscape painting can be seen as like a window - through which the outsider can immerse themselves in a space that subjectively reflects the natural world.

Artist Name: KATE MAREK

Artwork Title: BINNA BURRA OUTLOOK

Medium: Oil on panels framed in Blackbutt

Size: 42 x 124cm

About the Artist:

Kate Marek is a plein air landscape painter, drawing inspiration from her travels around Australia. Kate is fascinated the evocative power and painterly application of colour. She has been a practicing artist for over 20 years, with a background in visual arts, animation and teaching.

Artist Statement:

Painted from the balcony of Skylodges in Binna Burra, each panel shows the day’s changing light over Lamington National Park. I wanted the painting to convey the passing of time and the lived experience of being there. The view was so immense I found myself processing the landscape in segments, leading to separate viewpoints on panels.

Artist Name: CHRIS ASHLEY

Artwork Title: SOMEWHERE IN SYDNEY

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 28 x 36cm

About the Artist:

I love light, colour and atmosphere and how it affects the landscape whether urban or rural.

Artist Statement:

I'm an emerging artist, I've been in group shows at The Mosman Rowers and Mosman Art Gallery. I love capturing light and have started a series on rainy landscapes. Perfect subject for this crazy Sydney weather.

Artist Name: SAMANTHA GROENESTYN

Artwork Title: NO LIGHT HERE

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 61 x 46cm

About the Artist:

Raised in far north Queensland, Groenestyn trained as a philosopher and painter in Brisbane and Vienna. She won second prize in the 2022 Queensland Figurative, and was a finalist in the 2023 Clayton Utz and Brisbane Portrait Prizes. Her work is observational but tightly constructed, anchored in vital, rhythmic drawing.

Artist Statement:

I painted to infuse a turbulent domestic space with tranquillity and light. Rooms are like the layers of the conscious and subconscious mind, and while I stayed optimistic, the dark undercurrents warned me: ‘Eventually you will have to give up this love. It has a morbid heart.' (Maggie Nelson)

Artist Name: TODD WHISSON

Artwork Title: THE WATERHOLE (BRISBANE RIVER, LINVILLE)

Medium: Oil on Stretch (poly)

Size: 86 x 122cm

About the Artist:

Producing in a personal expressive style, I depict local landscapes with simplicity and honesty, capturing the interplay of stability and change. Through dynamic treatment and texture, I paint as if the viewer were the artist, offering a deeper connection to my shared experiences from within

Artist Statement:

"The Waterhole" captures a tranquil scene where a solitary bare gum tree stands by a riverbank, scattered trees among the dry grass paddocks and the distant erosion hinting at the passage of time. Within this serene setting, the painting evokes contemplation of the harmonious coexistence between humanity and the enduring essence of nature.

Judge’s Comment:

Perfect balance of vibrant colour with softer hues and tones. Beautiful textures and impastos underpinned by a strong composition.

Artist Name: PETRA REECE

Artwork Title: HOUSE IN DRY COUNTRY

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 103 x 114cm

About the Artist:

Petra Reece was born in Holland and emigrated to Australia with her family. Her father and brother both artists, worked making and restoring stained glass. Petra graduated with a B.A. and post graduate diploma at the Phillip Institute of Technology.

She has had several solo exhibitions and has twice won the Castlemaine Self Portrait prize. Her work is in both private and public collections

Artist Statement:

A vivid memory of isolated houses in the Australian country and the enormity of the land.

Artist Name: JAN JORGENSEN

Artwork Title: BRAND NEW DAY, SYDNEY

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 100 x 70cm

About the Artist:

Brisbane-born artist Jan Jorgensen studied art at Brisbane Girls Grammar, then at the now College of Art, before working as an artist on a Brisbane newspaper. After freelancing, Jan undertook an Associate Diploma of Visual Art at the College of Art, Kelvin Grove, with tutor William Robinson.

Jan co-founded the Queensland Wildlife Artists Society and exhibited for ten years before owning and running Ardrossan and Riverhouse Galleries in inner Brisbane. City paintings took over and many exhibitions in Brisbane and Sydney followed.

Artist Statement:

Early morning Potts Point. The form and grace of design seen from the Landmark Hotel captivates- contrasting Kings Cross chaos. 6 am so clear and perfect. Sketches in preparation for a solo then, became a small gouache study - always begging to become , finally, this large complex painting.. The cruise terminal changed everything though the bones are still there.

Judge’s Comment:

This colourful painting with fauvist undertones captures an iconic view of Sydney. The city, the bridge and Potts Point is lively and light, but always with an undertone of the wild beasts.

Artist Name: LAURA OCZóS

Artwork Title: REGENERATION

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 91 x 121cm

About the Artist:

Oczos paints landscapes that are autobiographical in nature. Whilst they are inspired by specific places that she inhabits in her daily life, they are painted from memory. She is interested in the dynamic nature of memory and draws on past and present experiences to create work that often combines multiple points of view and captures the spirit of the moment rather than producing an exact likeness.

Artist Statement:

This was inspired by my memories of bushwalking through the Royal National Park after a bushfire. I was taken not only by the destruction of the landscape but by how beautiful I found it and this contrast has stayed with me. I particularly remember that amongst the blackened trees and stark ground there was one spot with a lone grass that had survived which is what I have captured here.

Judge’s Comment:

This work shows a landscape that is stark and strange. The flat sheets of colour simultaneously, empty and full, they capture a process of continuous renewal in the Australian landscape.

Artist Name: JARAD DANBY

Artwork Title: WHAT ABOUT WHAT I WANT?

Medium: mixed; oil, gesso, aerosol

Size: 75 x 60cm

About the Artist:

jarad Danby is a muralist and oil painter from Brisbane's Bayside region. His work in the public art industry allows him to travel full-time while littering both coast and countryside with striking larger than life murals, while honing his talents as a plein-air painter in his spare time. Jarad uses these plein-air sketches as research for larger studio works where he approaches painting in a linear fashion, often merging classical painting techniques with more contemporary subjectivity.

Artist Statement:

This painting explores the all too familiar post break-up blues, and what freedom may feel like to us when we feel truely trapped by the consequences of our own actions.

Artist Name: NG MALLA

Artwork Title: THE FRANGIPANI TREE

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 45 x 55cm

About the Artist:

NG Malla studies urban and domestic landscapes. She tries to capture how archetypal Australian homes – from the ‘colonial’ cottage to the fifties fibro and beyond, are modified over time by residents and the irrepressible natural environment. After two decades as an urban planner and academic, NG Malla recommitted to her painting practice in 2019.

Artist Statement:

These old workers cottages are adjacent to the old brick pits in St Peters’ Sydney Park and the new Westconnex freeway. In painting them, I was interested in the interplay of light across the tin roofs, brick renders, and frangipani tree – quintessential remnants of inner Sydney.

Artist Name: NICK OLSEN

Artwork Title: LIVING IN A BUBBLE

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 90 x 120cm

About the Artist:

Nick Olsen is a Brisbane based painter who is interested in the built environment and how our living spaces reflect our cultural sensibilities through different times in our history. He uses a focus on light, tone and colour to elicit an emotional response and a sense of “place” in his work.

Artist Statement:

This painting elevates the humble urban landscape to a surreal version of itself. The intense colour scheme heightens an otherwise mundane environment to reflect the attention being placed on ‘ Home’ in our national psyche.

Artist Name: AMY DYNAN

Artwork Title: AFTER THE RAIN

Medium: pastel on paper

Size: 110 x 160cm

About the Artist:

I combine realism and abstract sensibilities to document sublimity in nature. The question is not what is sublime but how do we access it? I am curious about how we encounter sublimity and the reverence that emerges through relationship with the landscape.

Artist Statement:

I am captivated by the boundlessness of the Australian landscape, for its power to offer an experience of sublimity. This work captures the clarity that punctuates the process of letting go. Just as the atmosphere is washed clean after the rain, we too are shaped by nature’s unrelenting cycle of renewal.

Artist Name: ORACULAR

Artwork Title: DAYBREAK IN THE WEST

Medium: Soft pastel blocks on cotton

Size: 25 x 50cm

About the Artist:

I create artworks from locations I have visited in person, desiring to share and build awareness for the preservation of delicate natural habitats. My art is a celebration of beauty and the finer details, in a variety of mediums and surfaces, all with the dedication of producing sustainably made creations.

Artist Statement:

This particular landscape is inspired by a sunrise I witnessed breaking over Mount Augustus known as Burringurrah 'Island Mountain', found in the Kennedy Range National Park, Western Australia. It was completed in a single five hour sitting and is produced and framed sustainably.

Artist Name: BERIC HENDERSON

Artwork Title: THREE BROTHERS DREAMING

Medium: Acrylic on canvas board

Size: 45 x 55cm

About the Artist:

Beric Henderson is an Australian artist whose work explores our perceptions of nature and the environment and how these are subject to constant change. He works mainly with painting and drawing.

Artist Statement:

The three Brothers mountains span the mid-north NSW coast – I pass them regularly when driving between Port Macquarie and Sydney. This dissolving landscape impression was inspired by a dreamtime legend of the local Birpai people who tell of three brothers killed by a witch and buried where the mountains stand.

Artist Name: CAROLINE PENNY

Artwork Title: THE LINED ENTRANCE. ARMIDALE

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: 76 x 76cm

About the Artist:

Brisbane based Artist Caroline Penny has been painting and exhibiting in Qld for the past 24 Years. Prior to that exhibiting in her country of origin in England. She takes subject matter from wherever she finds herself. Specializing in Landscapes she is drawn to light and colour of a particular day that can "Heighten or Affect" something one would normally wander past.

Artist Statement:

On a holiday travelling to New South Wales, we drove past the entrance to a property south of the town of Armidale. The beauty, scale and age of the Poplar trees combined with the cattle meandering through them made it irresistible.

Artist Name: ANNA GLYNN

Artwork Title: EUROTIPODES - COLONIAL CAPSIZE

Medium: Archival photomontage on cotton rag paper (No. 1 in edition of 5)

Size: 64 x 76cm

About the Artist:

Anna Glynn is a Dharawal based artist whose rainforest home is tucked below the steep cliffs of the Illawarra escarpment, NSW. Filled with curiosity, she has a passion for investigating the complex relationships between humans, history, nature, land, place, physical and the ephemeral.

Artist Statement:

A semitransparent horse hangs upside down, merged with a kangaroo in a diaphanous landscape reimagining historical colonial paintings. Referencing time, ecological and cultural change, two iconic creatures embedded in our mythic folklore are joined, equine hoofs beating a rhythm onto the landscape, interwoven in a romantic narrative of Australian landscape.

Artist Name: REMNIM ALEXANDER TAYCO

Artwork Title: WILD TREE

Medium: Oil on Linen

Size: 87 x 71cm

About the Artist:

The 'Wild tree' at Cooks Rivers meanders 23 kilometers from the western suburbs of Sydney through to Botany Bay. Although an urban waterway, the surrounding paths and parks are tranquil in the early morning and exploring this haven has become a meditative ritual. I have come to know this area well enough to feel like home. This painting is not a direct rendition of the place but my impressions of the landscape as I watched it evolve over the seasons.

Artist Statement:

This piece serves as a nostalgic tribute to a particular tree and place, with a primary focus on the tree and its relationship to the surrounding environment . By using limited colors, I aimed to capture the mood and essence of the scene, highlighting the interconnectedness and presence of the tree within its natural setting.

Artist Name: CATHERINE ABEL

Artwork Title: LOOKING FOR MEANJIN

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 46 x 122cm

About the Artist:

My work is informed by my passion for European art and history, and an understanding of the ways in which aesthetics can enhance our lives and uplift our emotions. I find artistic inspiration in both the academic disciplines taught during the Renaissance and the stylised motifs and geometric forms of the Art Deco era.

Artist Statement:

Embarking on a walk through Brisbane’s urban labyrinth (the day after Australia voted ‘NO’ in the 2023 referendum), ’Looking For Meanjin’ follows my journey, intertwining through fragmented structures that mirror disjointed narratives and cultural disconnection, as my search for Indigenous presence turned up nothing but a seemingly one-sided reality.

Artist Name: CATHERINE HAMILTON-JONES

Artwork Title: AFTERNOON AT TEA TREE

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 61 x 50cm

About the Artist:

Catherine is an Australian visual artist based in Meeanjin, Brisbane. She embraces realism, infusing her work with vibrant hues that illuminate her detailed artworks. Inspired by the play of light in her scenes, one of Catherine’s primary aims is to provide an immersive and enjoyable experience for the viewer.

Artist Statement:

“Afternoon at Tea Tree" captures an idyllic Queensland retreat. Sun-dappled pandanus branches frame a serene beachscape, where sparkling water meets golden sands. A verdant tropical hillside beyond adds depth to the vista. Swimmers dot the distant waves, inviting viewers to imagine themselves in the tranquil beauty of this scene.

Artist Name: COCO ELDER

Artwork Title: DOORWAY TO THE NEVER NEVER

Medium: Carved Oil Painting on Board

Size: 182 x 82cm

About the Artist:

I’m drawn to capturing the spirit of place & finding symbiotic configurations in nature. Shapes are broken down into blocks of colour, I then carve into the paint with an engraving tool to remove the surface down to the wood or gesso, revealing gestural marks of geometrical forms & patterns.

Artist Statement:

Framed by soaring water gums & archways of branches forming vistas to infinite skies. As above, so below, reflected in pockets of fractured forms. Forms forming invitations to enter a kaleidoscopic journey towards ethereal light. Doors open. Doors close. A prayer to keep these doorways open.

Artist Name: ANDREW BENNETT

Artwork Title: STAG BALL

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 106 x 80cm

About the Artist:

I have been a practicing artist for decades now and the one consistency throughout my work has been my interest in the observation of the world through the various subject interests I’ve explored. Exploring an idea as a vehicle for the first. This often leads to a fusion of a quite high realism and an often almost surreal expression, though really it’s more conceptual, observed realism that I’m exploring. Take an idea and then apply the observation of the objects and content that expresses that idea. This leads to a final work that is not a simple document of what I’ve observed, but rather an expression of my imagination rooted in the world as I’ve observed it. That tension between an idea and delivering it in a way that conforms to how I’m observing it is at the heart of my practice. Each painting presents a slew of possible interactions to explore as I work the process from the initial inception, to the final rendition.

Artist Statement:

Here we have a curious situation. A stag horn in a mass ball ( kokadama ) is suspended above a verdant green landscape. Is it falling? Ascending or floating. Perhaps it doesn’t matter and the light on the forms are the subject. Or is there a deeper narrative that we can’t easily discern? You be the judge.

Artist Name: EVAN SHIPARD

Artwork Title: THE WINDING WINGECARRIBEE

Medium: Oil on linen

Size: 102 x 82cm

About the Artist:

A classically trained artist, Evan's background includes over two decades in the film and entertainment industries locally and abroad. Concerned with history, mythology, beauty, and the human condition his work focuses on drama and mood with a dedication to draftsmanship. Inspired by the Australian Impressionists, Evan strives to capture the essence of light and emotion in his work, carrying on their legacy with passion and skill.

Artist Statement:

For me, the Wingecarribee River holds a special place in my heart. Its meandering path through the Southern Highlands has become a familiar companion over the years, tracing a route through natural landscapes that resonate deeply within my soul. Whether I'm wandering its banks on a crisp autumn morning or overwhelmed in the atmosphere of a wintery dusk, each moment spent in its presence leaves a mark on my artistic spirit.

Artist Name: DAVID WELLS

Artwork Title: SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST

Medium: pastel on paper

Size: 45 x 70cm

About the Artist:

David Wells is a professional Artist and Art Tutor specialising in realism and surrealism working in oils, pastels, watercolour and acrylic. He has exhibited extensively, and received over 30 awards for his art. His work is held in public and private collections in Australia and internationally.

Artist Statement:

View to the south-southwest from the pontoon in front of my home in Highgate Hill, 2022.

Artist Name: CHRIS LAWRY

Artwork Title: THE BACK OF THE SHOPS

Medium: Lino cut orint

Size: 50 x 62cm

About the Artist:

Lino cuts have been my passionate obsession for about 15 years. I try to create tonal images with a balance of black white and grey. I love the challenge of translating the wide world into this fairly restrictive medium.

Artist Statement:

This lino print is based on my view from the bus terminal across the train line, to the shops in the main street, and the hills beyond

Artist Name: KELLY KONDIS

Artwork Title: THE PILLARS

Medium: oil on canvas in oak

Size: 183 x 93cm

About the Artist:

My work balances qualities of realism and impressionism exploring the organic elements and texture of the weather. I paint intuitively in oils and my landscapes are constructed over many layers with a subdued palette to represent a state of augmentation and transformation eventually arriving at immersive and sensory renderings.

Artist Statement:

Driving through the countryside in the hills outside Florence last year I was able to share the beauty of the landscape with my children. Imparting the wisdom of the four pillars of education as only experience can teach. To Know, to Do, Live and to Be. Every time we travel and have adventures together, we all come back a little different a little less sure of the world, but a lot more sure of our place in it.

Artist Name: K D DESILVA

Artwork Title: A PLAY OF LIGHT

Medium: Acrylics on Canvas

Size: 74 x 90cm

About the Artist:

K D De Silva, Sri Lankan born artist taught by his beloved father how to paint. He became interested in nature and now specialised in painting birds, still life and Urbanscapes. His paintings are in Acrylics, Oil and Mixed Media.

Artist Statement:

The Story Bridge, built between 1935 - 1940 is one of the most iconic structures in Brisbane. The use of the red light in this piece representative of the nation's iconic Red Centre, Uluru and MacDonnell Rangers and it's juxtaposition of our mostly urban lifestyle.

Artist Name: JO WHITE

Artwork Title: THE ONE AT THE CRICKET

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 120 x 120cm

About the Artist:

Jo White explores the u-beaut, dinky-di, true-blue Aussie-isms of the Australian vernacular which has developed into a unique style that depicts life in Australia both now and then. Pairing cultural touchstones and family memories with Australia’s icons is currently central to her practice.

Artist Statement:

Well-loved national values of mateship and having a go play out in this quintessentially sporting Australian landscape. With all the constituent elements of a suburban scene the tale is told vertically, not horizontally. Suggesting the weightlessness of memory the viewer savours a different but still familiar vantage point from above.

Artist Name: NETTIE SUMNER

Artwork Title: THE POETRY OF EXCAVATION ; A SUBTERRANEAN LANDSCAPE

Medium: Hand knitted wire

Size: 183 x 25cm

About the Artist:

Nettie Sumner’s “Poetry Collection” evokes stories of landscapes and environments. Her work is a collection of visual poems which explore the narratives of what the audience doesn’t necessarily see: told through three dimensional, sculptural works. The hand-knitted wire and mixed media sculptures are crafted using current methodologies within contemporary contexts.

Artist Statement:

This work explores the subterranean landscape that mining leaves behind. It is a romantic reimagining of an underground gold mine with excavated ore chambers, tunnels and veins of gold. The work is hand knitted in copper wire to create a rhythmic dialogue.

Artist Name: RORY O'CHEE

Artwork Title: CARVING THE AFTERNOON LIGHT - THE BREADKNIFE 2022

Medium: Monochrome print on archival art rag in a shadow box

Size: 130 x 90cm

About the Artist:

Rory specialises in landscape and seascape photography in Australia. From the coast to the heart of the Outback's Channel Country, he explores the world with a unique insight into what makes the Australian continent like no other on Earth.

Artist Statement:

Mountains carve the landscape.
Now they carve the shadows
Over the dark, oh so stark,
ranges. Forever
so tall and forbidding,
carved by a force of nature.

Artist Name: ZOE SERNACK

Artwork Title: ALONG THE WAY

Medium: Acrylic on board

Size: 100 x 160cm

About the Artist:

Zoe Sernack lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The National Art School and has been a finalist in many Australian art prizes. Her work explores the connections between landscape and the subconscious. Zoe’s objective has never been to realistically depict what she sees but to combine observation with abstraction and mark-making to evoke memories and a sense of place.

Artist Statement:

I am constantly fascinated by the intelligence of the natural world, its networks below the earth’s surface and the flourishing compositions we see above the ground. 'Along the Way' is my interpretation of memories I have, at my grandparents property along the Murrumbidgee River. This dyptich work, represents my love for Australian landscape and its prolific botanicals.

Artist Name: NICK HEYNSBERGH

Artwork Title: TERROIR 91 (CHALCOT LODGE)

Medium: Watercolour, pencil and gouache on paper

Size: 30 x 41cm

About the Artist:

Nick Heynsbergh is a visual artist, educator and writer. His art practice spans media including painting, drawing and printmaking. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours at RMIT in 2013. He has held solo exhibitions at various galleries in Melbourne, and participated in local and international group shows.

Artist Statement:

Through queered landscapes, Nick Heynsbergh asserts the continued existence of LGBTIQA+ experiences in Australia. The seemingly innocuous suburban imagery is reframed as a complex site of celebration, violence, isolation and community for LGBTIQA+ people. This subversion draws attention to the heteronormative forces and norms that confine queer identity in suburbia.

Artist Name: JACQUELINE & DANE SCOTCHER

Artwork Title: THRESHOLD

Medium: Digital Video/Projection

Size: 0 x 0cm

About the Artist:

Jacqueline is an artist/academic interested in how we connect with landscapes through bodily movement and the philosophical qualities that this relationship can bring. Sibling Dane is a motion graphic designer. The pair have been working together to best convey the evocative and time based nature of connecting with place.

Artist Statement:

'Threshold' is an invitation to consider the landscape as a portal. Paying attention to the rhythms, sensations and patterns of the natural world provides clarity, which opens a doorway into things within us that may otherwise go undiscovered in ‘busy’ contemporary life.

Artist Name: INGE-MARIE TERKILDSEN

Artwork Title: SUNBURNT COUNTRY

Medium: Acrylic on Linen

Size: 80 x 60cm

About the Artist:

Inge has been creative all her life with her inspiration coming from the beauty of the Australian landscape. Her goal is always to bring about the feeling and emotion the landscape gives She is inspired by our unique landscape and the volume of colour in the hills, trees, rocks and works to accentuate or pare back depending on what conveys the emotion.

Artist Statement:

Sunburnt Country is inspired by the Australian countryside and the beauty this dry and adverse land holds. I love how human existence marks this vast landscape with a fragile impermanence. The land draws you in and gives you a sense of its ancient solidity and our dependence on its abundance.

Artist Name: RACHEL HONNERY

Artwork Title: FOREST OF LINES

Medium: Acrylic on board, wool yarn, recycled fabric, wax, found sticks

Size: 183 x 183cm

About the Artist:

Rachel Honnery’s art practice is multi-disciplinary and engages dialogues about the future of landscapes and eco-systems. She produces sculptures made from domestic materials and fibres, photographic documentation, photographic story, and painting to create an interchange between form and metaphor. She is interested in the entanglements of human relationships to environments.

Artist Statement:

Forest of Lines explores the colour, shapes, texture, and movement of Nuenonne in Southern Central Tasmania. This landscape explodes with endemic flora that are sculpted by Antarctic winds, and dampened by rain and snow, producing cold climate rain forests. Sadly, the continuation of old growth logging threatens this ecosystem.

Artist Name: LEAH THIESSEN

Artwork Title: MOON FLOWERS

Medium: oil on board

Size: 123 x 123cm

About the Artist:

My work taps into the emotional gravity of a place, its memory, its pulse, its rawness and power. For me the paintings communicate a deep felt relationship with the earth, embodying a spirit of place and its atmosphere.

Artist Statement:

The images are a direct emotional response to the bush and mangroves that surround my home. My paintings explore the unique way of capturing the diversity of the natural terrain. I often start my paintings with the small delicate details found in the bush and then depart to a place of frantic energy

Artist Name: ANNE-MAREE HUNTER

Artwork Title: THE NECK

Medium: Painted Paper Pulp Bas Relief on recycled timber

Size: 12 x 38cm

About the Artist:

“The Neck” represents the isthmus that connects North and South Bruny Island, Tasmania and is both an imagined and realistic interpretation of its landforms and seascape. It is sculpted on recycled timber using malleable paper-pulp. It is part sculpture, part painting.

Artist Name: DENNIS MCCART

Artwork Title: THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

Medium: Ink, oil and humbrol enamel paint on canvas

Size: 61 x 61cm

About the Artist:

Dennis McCart is multi-disciplinary artist working across painting, drawing, animation and machine learning. His artwork is informed by liminal landscapes and the tension between humans' instinctive connection to nature and the ever-increasing signs of detachment. In the last decade, he has exhibited widely and been shortlisted as a finalist across Australia.

Artist Statement:

As an artist based in Brisbane, erasure of historical buildings is recurrent, I am attuned to this destructive pattern. Construction sites, emblematic of temporality and transitions, captivate me with their abstract shapes and nuanced tones. My painting delves into the archetypal imagery of demolishment, a pervasive symbol in contemporary culture.

Artist Name: STEVEN GORMAN

Artwork Title: BADLANDS

Medium: Oil on cancas

Size: 50 x 152cm

About the Artist:

Predominantly a self taught oil painter, Steve studied for a short period at Julian Ashton’s School of Art in Sydney. His current focus is on landscape and figurative compositions. He has won a number of first prizes including dust temple/dean cogle portrait prize (2023),Dust Temple Packers Award (2022), shortlisted finalist in the Dust Temple portrait prize (2021), the 2020 Lethbridge 20000, 2021 Lethbridge Landscape Prize, and Clayton Utz art prize.

Artist Statement:

Painting offers a problem to the viewer that the artist did not resolve…it provides a stage and an act that may or may not occur, but will resolve in a moment hence. So it attempts to provoke that tension, and relies as always on what the viewer sees fit for resolution

Artist Name: VIOLET BOND

Artwork Title: DESCENDANTS

Medium: Video

Size: 16 x 9cm

About the Artist:

Violet Bond is a born an bread Territorian whose work tell the story of life and death the wild places. She is a photographer, performance artists and sculptor who explores the human connection to the natural world, colonialism and the environmental impacts of humanity through her works.

Artist Statement:

We are the descendants of the witches you could not burn. A piece of work that reflects on the witches in my English history. When women were burned at the stake, all of their remnants, all of their being, all of their essence, all of their magic turned into this black ash that was left on the ground behind them. They fertilised the earth for the next generation of women.

Judge’s Comment:

Moving imagery of a familiar story and landscape.

Artist Name: WILHLEMUS BREIKERS

Artwork Title: I AM APPALLED BY THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T WEAR HATS WHEN WALKING IN THE WARRUMBUNGLES

Medium: acrylic and charcoal on paper

Size: 86 x 123cm

About the Artist:

I make painting, sculptures and photographic art and ground the things I do in the world around me, generally working from drawings made directly from the subject. I spend considerable time ascribing titles to my work: The wry humour of this one is deliberate.

Artist Statement:

There are many stunning lookouts and invigorating walks in the Warrumbungle National Park, and this work was inspired one of the easier ones. The view into the valley of peaks is spectacular from this vantage point and I encourage all to visit, and don’t forget your hat.

Artist Name: MARCEL DESBIENS

Artwork Title: LOST IN TIME

Medium: oil on board

Size: 40 x 40cm

About the Artist:

Marcel is a practicing artist living in Landsborough. His research for the ultimate oil painting technique leads him to the Renaissance Masters. Marcel has been painting and teaching those methods for over 40 years. His realist style has recently evolved towards surrealism and abstraction.

Artist Statement:

Composing a landscape from imagination has forced me to move out of my real world and everything was possible. I have decided to let myself travel in time and invent a fictive environment not linked to anyplace we know of. Everyone can than make out their own story.