Hundreds of  artists and friends packed the gallery and waited for the announcement of the winners. Judges Susi Muddiman OAM and artist Amanda Penrose Hart, winner of the 2017 Gallipoli art prize had considered all 230 pieces and after much deliberation decided to equally divide the First Prize between two artists.

Joint First Prize

Vanessa Stockard

Pleasure and Pain

acrylic on board

30 x 30 cm(framed)

First Prize: Vanessa Stockard, ‘Pleasure and Pain’ 30 x 30 cm acrylic on board

Joint First Prize

Kat Shapiro Wood

Hover

encaustic on board

30 x 30 cm

Other awards

Joint first prize: Kate Shapiro, Hover, encaustic on board 30 x 30 cm

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Jenni Catt: Untitled 2017

For Jenni Catt, meditating on the life force while she paints loosely – almost ritualistically – in watercolours, opens up questions of absence, presence and the soul of animals.  

Angela Tay: Billow 2015

For Angela Tay, it is the way ebbing tides surge and retreat, creating ever-changing dramas. Experimenting with ink and watercolours on tissue-thin paper, along with video and paper sculpture, her work is as unpredictable as what we experience on the beach.

John Bennett, Jenni Catt and Angela Tay are on show at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery from 7 July – 12 August 2017: coffsharbour.regional-gallery

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Dave Sparkes has been involved in various creative pursuits for many years. He has been senior writer/photographer for the iconic surfing magazine, Tracks, for over 20 years.  Sparkes has been painting watercolours for several years, concentrating mainly on plein air landscapes and seascapes. He won the Naturalist Division of The Pacific Palms Art Festival in 2012, and achieved a Highly Commended in 2013. He’s had several works published in Tracks and White Horses magazines, both having additionally published articles on his watercolour art. Tracks also recently featured his work in their “Two Hands” section, a monthly feature on emerging artists.

Dave Sparkes, Gap Road – Ballina; 50cmx70cm, watercolour.

Sparkes grew up in Bondi Beach, and now lives in Byron Bay with his partner Tracey Turner. In between walking the dog and exploring the hinterland for natural swimming holes, he surfs, paints, writes and takes photographs.

Sparkes has had thousands of images and over 2oo feature articles published, and has interviewed many surfing luminaries such as Tom Curren, Occy, Sunny Garcia, Dave Rastovich and Mick Fanning. His photographs have adorned the covers of magazines in many countries, including the US, Australia, France, New Zealand, England and Spain, and most notably he photographed the cover of the 2005 US Surfer Magazine Photo Annual. His book of words and photographs, The Wave: Tales From the Impact Zone, was published to rave reviews in Australia and New Zealand by Hachette Publishing in 2011.

Dave Sparkes, Seven Mile Beach, Pacific Palms; 31cmx54cm, watercolour.

Sparkes’ upcoming exhibition, Illumination, will be showing at Byron Bay’s Lone Goat Gallery from February 3rd to February 15th, 2017. His first solo show will feature works created by Sparkes over the last 18 months, with a focus on his glowingly impressionistic landscapes and seascapes of the East Coast. Approximately 50 framed and mounted paintings will be exhibited, highlighting the artist’s fascination for sunlight and shadow, mist and atmosphere, and the whimsical realism of his watercolour vision.

ILLUMINATION – Watercolours by Dave Sparkes, Lone Goat Gallery, 28 Lawson St, Byron Bay, February 3rd – February 15th

Opening night Feb 3 from 6 – 8pm

For more information on Dave Sparkes go to: sparkesphoto

lone-goat-gallery-at-the-byron-bay-library

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Kelly Zarb:

“My work has a central theme of natural wonder and joy in colour. I feel a strong pull towards the moon,  the stars and the sky. Every night after work I walk down my driveway, I look to the sky to see which of my friends are shining my way tonight. I feel that I am part of this vast universe. In order to capture this vast magical land and ocean of energy, I have developed a formula of geometric shapes including circles, triangles and repetitive dot sequences to explore unity, I can’t get enough of this grand science. These different elements create the backdrop for the universe at large which is the central theme of my paintings.”

Kelly Zarb: Embraced Beginnings, 30cm X 30cm, acrylic on canvas.

Bernadette Curtin:

“The sea creatures inhabiting the ocean, from tiny molluscs to the mighty whales, live in a majestic eco-system, each creature a part of the whole.
The coral reef systems, my focus for this body of work, symbolise the interconnectedness of all life, as well as the delicateness, preciousness and fragility of nature. If the way we live impacts on these systems and their inhabitants, how responsibly are we living?
The Ocean seems like a metaphor for a world uncorrupted, something we humans long for.”

Bernadette Curtin: Building the Reef, oil on canvas, 120cm x 90cm.

Merrilee Pettinato

“We have spectacular beaches in the Norther Rivers, each time I walk on the sand or swim in the sea the magic is all around me. Any one aspect of the ocean is worthy of expressing on canvas, and for this exhibition I have chosen to focus on the shoreline…a seagull strutting along the water’s edge, the crashing aquamarine wave with all the white crests, looking into a rock pool at the treasures living there, the pandanus growing in salty sand, the lighthouse a beacon of light to guide fishermen and sailors. The detail of random patterns, reflections and light play on the surface of the water, the colours that appear I find are of continuing fascination. When I break down a reflection the patterns, colours, light, shade and depth are so random…until you step back and view them as a whole and they then merge as water again.”

Merrilee Pettinato: Pier at Yamba, 120cm x 140cm, oil on linen.

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