The final prize in this year’s Fleurieu Art Prize festival has been awarded, with Sydney artist Neil Frazer winning the $2500 People’s Choice award for his painting, Hot Loop.
Frazer’s work was selected by the almost 20,000 visitors who voted during this year’s biennial Prize festival, held from 26 October to 25 November 2013.
General Manager Karen Paris says she suspected Frazer’s piece, which uses dense, impasto paint to depict a red rock aperture, would be a popular favourite from early on.
“It draws the viewer into the painting and is reminiscent of many central Australian landscapes, which appeals to a wide audience,” Miss Paris says.
“Viewers enjoyed the generosity of paint application and the hyper-real quality, not to mention its size, which all work together to create a stunning work, worthy of this award.
“The People’s Choice prize really challenged audiences to select a single work out of a dynamic range of high quality art from many of Australia’s best known artists.”
Frazer has thanked everyone who voted for his work, which depicts the Loop walk at Kalbarri National Park in Western Australia.
“The painting is a creation based on the area, with elements of the Murchison River and Nature’s Window organised in an energetic and very physical way to give some sense of the experience,” Frazer says.
The main Prize was announced in late October, with NSW artist Fiona Lowry winning the $60,000 award for her haunting airbrush work Alone With You.
The Prize shortlist of just over 120 works was shown in cellar doors and galleries around McLaren Vale and the wider Fleurieu Peninsula region, attracting record visitation up approximately 20 per cent on the 2011 event.
