Art honour for Muir

A painting by South Wairarapa artist Grant Muir has been selected as one of two finalists outside Australia in the Fleurieu Art Prize, regarded as carrying the world's richest landscape art purse.

Grant Muir, who lives at Hinakura and creates his self-termed "new impressionism" pieces in a studio in Wellington, said he was honoured to have his work, The Big Splash, selected for the finals in the contest.

The Fleurieu Biennale began in 1998 and the Fleurieu Art Prize 2011 is the first to be opened to entrants from outside Australia. It will be the seventh prize awarded since its inception, offering a total prize pool of $90,000. Muir is one of two artists from outside Australia selected as a finalist alongside Spain's Ramon Surinyac.

The Big Splash was rendered in oil paint and ink-jet on chip board and had been selected in the water section of the competition, Muir said, and that was significant to him.

The work is from a series of paintings inspired by his son, James Muir, while he was shooting the international award-winning film River Dogs, about his father's battle to protect the nearby Pahaoa River from neighbouring farmers' cattle.

"I believe the water section was established because of water problems in Australia as well - it's an environmental section - and selection of The Big Splash is very fitting and timely.

"It keeps the struggle to safeguard the river in people's minds and the inclusion of my work in the art prize and the awards the film has earned also lends us both a degree of credibility. "It shows we're not just whacko greenies and we're not just out there telling farmers how to farm," he said.

He said The Big Splash captured his "number one huntaway dog splashing in the water of a river that the dogs love and protect". "Without them, as portrayed in the film, the Pahaoa River would today be lost and flowing green with excrement."

Muir said the fight alongside his dogs to save the river from some Hinakura farmers "continues to this day".

The winners of the Fleurieu Art Prize will be announced on November 5.