Art fair winners

Horsham East Rotary Art Fair leaders have crowned judged and public-opinion winners after a successful week of the exhibition’s 44th year.

Horsham Regional Art Gallery director Jane Scott awarded best artwork in show to Kathy Koop for her pastelmedium black cockatoo and a runners-up award to Joan Goad for her artistic depictions of Dimboola’s Pink Lake.

Ms Scott said she was drawn to art that reflected the local environment and in particular Goad’s work with her ‘beautiful soft colours and collation of rusty metal into her canvasses’.

She said Koop’s cockatoo was ‘beautiful’.

“For anyone who knows pastel as a medium, it is really hard work and is not an easy medium to use,” she said.

“It can be very messy and unless you’re a master of the technique, which Koop obviously is, you can just end up with a mess.”

Meagan Lonsdale won people’s choice best artwork for her ‘Youngsters’ piece, with Ellen Dymke runner-up for her work, ‘Memories’.

Ms Scott said the fair was a great showing of Wimmera and further afield artists and said the Rotary club organisers were ‘fantastic’.

She said proceeds from the event would be reinvested back into charities and communities.