$10,000 prize to Port artist

Port Chalmers artist Philip Maxwell won the $10,000 top prize at Friday night’s Craigs Aspiring Art Prize exhibition at the Holy Family Catholic School in Wanaka with his Cubist rendition of a scene at Deborah Bay, on Otago Harbour.

It was the 14th year for the exhibition which has one of the biggest art prizes in the country.

Organiser Yeverley McCarthy, who has been involved every year, said the exhibition was continuing to improve.

"It’s gone from strength to strength.

"The first year was absolutely ghastly; really it was."

The second prize went to Auckland artist Sophie Melville for her painting Winter Shadows over the Lindis Pass.

The judges were head of the College of Art, Design and Architecture at Otago Polytechnic Prof Federico Freschi and Hocken Collections head curator of pictures Robyn Notman.