A full-house of artists, art lovers, local and visiting community members packed in to the Centre to be part of Katherine’s most anticipated annual event on the local arts and culture calendar to witness the announcement of the winning artworks of the 44th Katherine Prize.

“We are celebrating the exceptional art and creativity of the region. Local and regional NT artists look forward to this opportunity to enter and display their work in this annual exhibition and prize. The prize is open to resident artists of the Territory who enter new original creative works each year. Again, this year, you can see the wonderful diversity of our regional artists with 40 quality artworks across vast mediums, styles and subject matter in the adult’s exhibition and 22 amazing artworks in the youth exhibition,” said Godinmayin Director Poppy Searle.

Presented by Godinymayin and supported by funding through the Katherine Town Council and the ongoing generosity of Brian and Jeannette Lambert, the 44^th Katherine Prize winners were unveiled as follows:

• Brian and Jeanette Lambert Award $5,000 presented to Danny Murphy for his work Earthly delights;
• Katherine Town Council Award $2,000 presented to Catherine Miles for Hightail; and
• Highly Commended awarded presented to Mike Rule for his works Kapok’s Dreaming and Victoria River rocks and to Tom House for his portrait Jeff.

The judges for this year’s open awards, the inimitable Marcus Schutenko, Director of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and Mr Brian Tucker, private art collector had the exhaustive task in selecting winning artworks.

“We are absolutely pleased with the results of this year’s awards. The winning works are exceptional and the announcement of Danny Murphy as the overall winner was unanimously well received by our community and audience, many of who have Danny Murphy works in their own homes and collections. It is a momentous and well deserved recognition of the amazing ceramic work – Earthly delights – that Danny entered,” added Ms Searle.

The Katherine and regional community are invited to attend a special Curator and Artists talk (including winners Danny Murphy and Catherine Miles) in Godinmayin’s lunchtime talk series from 12.30-1.15pm on Tuesday 6 August.

“What a great opportunity to have a relaxed and informative lunchtime guided tour around the exhibition, presented by our newly appointed Curator Brendan Penzer and a selection of the exhibiting artists, including both the winning open prize artists Danny Murphy and Catherine Miles” said Ms Searle.

“Additionally, at the talks you can select your favourite artwork in this year’s Katherine Prize, by selecting from the adults and youth exhibitions in the People’s Choice Award,”

Cast your vote throughout the exhibition, which runs until 14 September.