Rotorua Art Awards: $10,000 supreme winner revealed

Rotorua artist Kylie Tiuka has beaten almost 100 artists to take out the $10,000 Rotorua Museum Supreme Art Award with her work Te Korihi (birdsong).

In naming Tiuka's Te Korohi as the Supreme Award winner, the awards judge and director of the Dowse Art Museum, Courtney Johnston, described the painting as "bringing together mastery of the medium with a sense of mystery that draws you back over and over".

The winner of the supreme art award was announced in front of hundreds of people at an awards function at Rotorua Museum last night.

Meanwhile, Rotorua's Jane Johnson-Matua won the $4000 Waimangu Volcanic Valley Sustainable Art Award for her work Material Culture Artefacts. Her piece was described as a "seemingly careless pile [which] shows itself to be carefully constructed".

"Ubiquitous plastic forms are rendered in a deeply local material, wild clay from Rotorua, making this work a very fitting recipient for this award," the judges said.

Rotorua's Sarah Ziessen was named as the Rotorua Museum Emerging Artist for her work Positive Atrophy and won $1000 for her work which was described as "bringing together the traditions of abstract painting with the shapes of the natural world".

The winners were chosen from 130 works entered by 98 artists from across the Bay of Plenty, selected in a blind judging process, based purely on the merits of the artworks.

The winners and 30 selected finalists will be on display at Rotorua Museum from today until October 28.