Renowned local painter Freeman White is selector for the eighth annual Art Hawke's Bay exhibition, on show this weekend in Hastings.
Hawke's Bay Alive is the overall theme for the eighth annual exhibition which has seven categories; faces, elementary, horsing around, humour, landmarks, town & country, and wet, wet, wet.
White, who spent much of his 20s travelling between New Zealand and Europe, cites the great museums of Europe and their collections as among his influences.
After studying fine arts at both Elam and The Learning Connexion, he won the 2006 Adam Portraiture Award.
At the invitation of Scottish National Portrait Gallery director James Holloway, he travelled to Edinburgh and spent several months there as a portrait painter.
White's landscape paintings are also well respected, and he has exhibited nationally and internationally and held several international art residencies. Most recently he was involved in set work for Festival Opera's The Marriage of Figaro.
Art Hawke's Bay was founded in 2007 by Ian Thompson, with the idea of bringing all art groups in Hawke's Bay, from Wairoa to Dannevirke, together to a central location once a year to show their work in a selected exhibition.
Art Hawke's Bay exhibition: Cheval Room, HB Racing Centre, Hastings, 9am-9pm Friday to Sunday.
Tickets to tonight's opening at 6pm cost $15 from Gillian on (06) 873 3146.