Entries are now open for one of the Sunshine Coast’s most established arts events, the Immanuel Arts Festival.
A popular and well-known event on the local cultural calendar, this year the festival turns 40.
A lavish gala opening will be held on May 20, before the festival opens to the public from May 21-23.
The event is an opportunity for artists of all ages, including students from any school, to showcase their talent and increase their public profile.
Emerging and established artists are encouraged to enter.
This year’s feature artists are ‘Artist in Focus’ Chris Blake and ‘Artists in Residence’ Justin Bruhn and Odessa Mahony-de Vries.
The latter is a graduate of Immanuel Lutheran College and an established artist who won Best Painting at the Festival in 2019.
Help keep independent and fair Sunshine Coast news and sport coming by subscribing to our free daily news feed. All it requires is your name and email. See SUBSCRIBE at the top of this article.
For the first time, a Student Artist in Focus will appear.
Immanuel Year 11 student Libby Evans is an extraordinary young artist who won Most Outstanding Work of Festival in 2019 with her wearable art piece, X-Radiance.
Libby was also a Finalist in the 2021 Stanthorpe Art Prize and placed second in a national wearable art competition in 2019.
“In 2019, the festival had a 30 percent increase in artist entries and nearly $25,000 of local artwork was sold,” Principal Colin Minke said.
“Our festival shows that there is a demand for community arts events where artists can enter a range of categories including painting, mixed media, sculpture, photography, wearable and creative arts.”
Chris Blake is a master pastellist with the Pastel Society of Australia.
He is an acclaimed artist who works mostly in oils and pastels and he paints landscapes and human-interest subjects.
“My work is best described as contemporary impressionism; realism but pushing the boundaries of colour and tone,” he said.
“My paintings might have green, yellow or pink skies, blue roads purple sand and shadows.
“It makes them vibrant and, with judicious layering, even luminous.”
Award-winning artist, photographer and conservationist Justin Bruhn has more than 10 years of expertise in underwater photography.
Accolades include winning an award for his image of an endangered green turtle at the Cairns Underwater Film Festival in 2014, and the same image, ‘Reflections’, sold out in the David Hart Gallery.
He won the Sunshine Coast Business Award in the Creative Industries category in 2018 and his business, Pure Underwater Imaging, was commissioned by Sunshine Coast Council to supply artwork for the Beerwah Aquatic Centre refurbishment.
“People protect what they love, and I endeavour to inspire a love of the ocean through my photography,” he said.
Artist in Residence Odessa Mahony-de Vries is a visual artist who specialises in painting with mixed media on canvas and plywood.
After completing a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Degree at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, she has focused on abstract painting and developing a visual language that is forever evolving.
A recent residency involved locking herself in a jail cell for eight hours with a set of instructions for painting.
Her ‘making process’ is a combination of mistakes, intuition, movement, layering, concealing and a collection of visual resolutions and techniques acquired over time.
She has several exhibitions planned for the next few months.
The 40th Immanuel Arts Festival was launched at the school, with Chris Blake, Justin Bruhn, Odessa Mahony-de Vries and Libby Evans in attendance.
Information: www.immanuelartsfestival.com.au
