People's Choice winner - Lyn Robins' "Dessicated."
The 2012 Penneshaw Easter Art Exhibition officially closed its doors on Saturday April 14 after one of the most successful and well attended exhibitions in the last few years. More than 1000 people visited the exhibition over the 9 days that it ran.
The Joie de Vie or joy of life, expressed in so many of the entries seemed to infect the visitors as well as the artists, because not only were attendances good, but steady sales resulted in 65 works selling for a total value of more than $16,000.
Voting in the People’s Choice was spread right across the board, but the ultimate winner, receiving $250 sponsored by Roger Salkeld and Helen Bell, was Lyn Robins’ beautiful acrylic painting, “Dessicated”. Lyn’s work had already caught the eyes of the judges who awarded it First Prize in the Current Works 2D category at the Opening Night.
Coming a very close second in the People’s Choice voting, only one vote behind, was Caroline Taylor’s “3rd Summer, 1st Sandhill”, which was also a winner with the judges, getting Third Prize in the major themed category.
Both Lyn and Caroline’s works sold, as did Suzanne Trethewey’s major winning painting, “Yooking For Yizzards”.
The winner of the mega art raffle was a very delighted Kate Sumner of Penneshaw. She wins over $1000 of artwork donated by the artists of Artworks Gallery at Baudin Beach. Sales of tickets for this excellent prize raised over $1100.
Bidding for the Silent Auctions wasn’t quite as spirited and unfortunately the two regional packages failed to get any acceptable bids above the reserve. However the Cartoon and Wine package consisting of a framed, signed copy of Nick Pike’s original poster cartoon and selected wines from Dudley Wines, Chapman River wines and Island Estate prompted several bids with Anthea Howard of Kingscote eventually taking the package with her bid of $470. Richard Trethewey’s bid of $430 secured him the Pastel and Wine package.
The Artists Collective has been thrilled with the success of the exhibition this year, which has exceeded most of our expectations. Congratulations to all the winners, and to those who sold work, but a big thank you as well to all the other artists who put in entries this year.
Without you there would be no exhibition and as one of the judges, Helen Stevens, commented on the Opening Night, it takes a lot of courage to put your art work up there for public scrutiny.