Jane Dennis and Jan Bardsley-Smith inspect a portrait of well-known Cooktown identity Marilyn Morris. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
The committed and fun-loving characters of Cooktown have been immortalised in paint for the second Cooktown School of Art Society’s (CSAS) Archies exhibition.
Whether a historical figure, family, friend, an admired local or even oneself, artists of the eastern Cape York township filled the Elizabeth Guzsley Gallery with portraits of the people who inspired them when the exhibition opened on 18 October.
“This year has been predominantly people who contribute to Cooktown; a lot of them are actually volunteers, so that’s really nice that people are paying homage to them,” CSAS president Jane Dennis said.
Winning portraits were selected by a panel of three judges before opening night.
Ursula Caballero Santander, Hazel Moore and Jade Auld were the adult category winners, Zyra Jones and Ezra Jones won the youth category, and Sonja Guinea and EJ Reuben received encouragement awards.
“The standard of artists putting entries in with us just seems to be getting better and better,” judge Ian McRae said.
“We’re getting more people interested in art in Cooktown than we’ve ever had before.”
For Mr McRae, works that were innovative and showed off an artist’s creativity were the ones that stood out.
“We would hope to avoid something like photorealism, which would just copy something, and instead we hope people find different ways to present their artwork,” he said.
“Whether it’s a screen print or a painting or whatever medium they used, we looked for something that was a little unusual.
“The winners all had not only great technique, but also had something a little unique about them that showed the imagination behind the artist.”
The Archies exhibition will be available for viewing until 2 November.
