Donna Demente's portrait of Fleur Sullivan.
Moeraki and former Clyde identity Fleur Sullivan is the
subject of a portrait by Oamaru artist Donna Demente which has
been named runner-up in the Adam Portraiture Award.
The top prize, announced at a function at the New Zealand
Portrait Gallery on Wednesday night, was won by Kapiti Coast
artist Harriet Bright for her portrait of a naked friend.
Ms Demente and Rosalind Fair, of Auckland, were both named
runners-up. Ms Demente said she was thrilled, particularly
given that apart from one self-portrait, it was the first
portrait she had done of a "real" person.
The painting of Ms Sullivan, the Fleur's Place restaurateur,
was part of an idea she had to do a series of portraits of
ship figureheads.
It recently formed part of "demente deCade", a major
exhibition at the Forrester Gallery of Ms Demente's work over
the past 10 years.
The award attracted 312 entries, which where whittled down to
93 portraits in the final selection.
The standard was "incredible", Ms Demente said.
It was judged by Andrew Sayers, director of the Australian
National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Ms Demente spoke with him and was "so stoked" with his
comments about her painting.
She planned to continue painting portraits, focusing on local
characters.
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