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Some of Kaipara’s most talented artists have been recognised at this year’s Kaipara Art Awards.
Mangawhai Artists Gallery and Dargaville Arts Association hosted the prizegiving at Bennetts of Mangawhai on October 9. Judges Peter Panyoczki, Stephen Davies and Miriam van Wezel were tasked with choosing the winners from a diverse field of entries at the biennial event.
Linda Francis, who entered in the Emerging Artist category, won the 2D Painting award with her work Churning Waters. Francis said the immersive painting was inspired by the swirling water around a boat propeller.
The judges praised her work for its mix of realism and abstraction. “It draws the viewer in, who is then rewarded by the detailed and complex structure of the work,” they said.
The Other Media category, which included photography, printmaking, collage and mosaic, was won by Mangawhai mixed media artist Alix St Clair for her work Solidarity.
The judges called her work a “confident composition”.
“The overlapping images of faces aptly convey the humanity of the subject,” they said.
Dargaville-based Micaela van den Berg won the 3D Sculpture category with Rabbit.
“All three judges were drawn to this small sculpture. There is a vulnerability to the figure that creates a psychological tension for the viewer. The detail that is there draws you to the fragility and uncertainty contained in the work,” the judges said.
Serena Barclay’s Spider received the Judges’ Award. Crafted from silk collected from spiders, the intricate work took years to make.
Lara Ashley received the Creative Northland Emerging Artist Award for her hand-built 3D ceramic work Escape.
“This work plays with the positive and negative spaces. The artist has created a fluid composition that reveals a mask-like skin of a figure emerging out of the material. Nothing is fixed in place. Lots of potential and formal resolutions are possible,” the judges said.
Other artists recognised at the awards were Philippa Murray-Aynsley, who came second in the 2D Painting category with Moreton Bay Fig Tree Pahi, and Janel Colle, whose Solar Bloom placed third. Rebecca King’s Flutter and Christine den Hartogh’s Remains of the Grasses won second and third place, respectively, in the Other Media category. Andy Bryenton came second in the 3D Sculpture category with Cordyceptic Eidolon.
“We are hugely grateful to our sponsors and supporters,” Kaipara Art Awards 2026 coordinator Belinda Vernon said.
“We couldn’t hold the awards without their support: Creative Northland, The French Art Shop, Gordon Harris The Art and Graphic Store, Kaipara Lifestyler, Paula Renner (Barfoot & Thompson), Fosters Home Décor, Kaipara District Creative Communities, Bennetts of Mangawhai and Barfoot & Thompson.
“The event is solely run by volunteers from Mangawhai Artists. Special thanks go to Elena Nikolaeva, the curator of the exhibition; the ‘hanging team’; Julia Walkinshaw for her design and system skills; and Nina Gastreich for photography.”
The Kaipara Art Awards exhibition is on show at Mangawhai Artists Gallery from 10am to 3pm daily until Thursday, October 22.
