Wide Open Spaces
Friday 12th - Sunday 14th September 2025
Gerringong Town Hall
106 Fern St
Gerringong NSW
Theme
Life can at times feel restrictive and pressured. The Bible tells us that connection to our Creator…faith in Jesus, leads us from confinement into wide open spaces. We’d love you to meditate on and explore this concept. We look forward to seeing your creatively articulated response.
Inspired by the following scripture:
“Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”
Romans 8:5-11 MSG
Art Prize Categories and Awards:
Open Category (18+ years):
First Prize: $3,000
Second Prize: $1,500
Third Prize: $750
Youth Category (13-17 years):
First Prize: $300
Second Prize: $150
Developing Artist Category (12 years & under):
First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $50
People's Choice Award:
$500
Programme
Friday 12th September / 6PM
Join us for the Official Opening and Presentation of the Open and Youth Prizes, along with Art Sales from 7pm, Drinks and Grazing Table.
Our MC and guest speaker for the evening will be the incredibly talented and inspiring local Artist Emily Ackland.
Saturday 13th September / 10am - 4pm
On Saturday we invite a more interactive experience. Alongside the art show there will be:
Artisan Market selling quality hand made items from local budding artisans. Proceeds will go to to Illawarra Community Care
Kids Workshops and Interactive All Day Art Space on the lawn 10am to 3pm
Inside you'll find the Art Exhibition as well Devonshire Teas on sale in the annexe & a casual Interactive Art Space to bring out the artist in all of us.
Sunday 14th September / 10am - 4pm
On Sunday C3 Haven Community Church will host a closing celebration from 10.30am - 12.30pm with music, Artist Q & A Deep Dive and the Presentation of the People's Choice Award.
Art Show Open to 4pm
Artist: Emily Ackland
Our Judge
Andrew McPhail
Landscapes and seascapes that capture the heart.
Background
I have always created art and remember at a young age showing drawings to classmates. Art was a subject of mine through secondary school and an elective during teacher training. Opportunities such as backdrop art for musicals, teaching elective art classes in a Junior High School, painting for personal pleasure and learning from well-established artists all added to a continuing love of painting.
My career has been in Education, firstly as a classroom teacher then in school leadership. It was during the COVID lockdowns when I consciously decided to pick up the brushes again. Inspired by my son’s surf photography, I began to capture the beauty and light of the ocean around my home in the Illawarra, NSW.
I work mainly in acrylic, and also love the feel of oils and the slightly uncontrolled nature of watercolour! Since retiring from full time work I have dedicated myself to improving my practice and sharing my art with others. I hope to connect people to places and give the gift of joy and wonder that reflects the beauty of creation.
Training
I have received formal training in Vancouver, Canada in watercolour with Lynne Carmichael (formerly with the Hornby Island collective). I describe myself as a self-taught artist, with online resources and fellow artists my source of tuition and challenge. I aspire to be a lifelong learner.
Exhibitions
1992 Regent College gallery, Vancouver Chiaroscuro – works in watercolour, solo exhibition
2021 Fern Street Gallery, Gerringong Look Up – solo exhibition
2022 Fern Street Gallery, Gerringong A view with room – solo exhibition
2023 Fern Street Gallery, Gerringong Local Hero – solo exhibition, Dawn to Dusk – solo exhibition
2024 Fern Street Gallery, Gerringong Journeys – solo exhibition
Galleries
I am a resident artist with Fern Street Gallery and have my work in Ellow Creative, Berry.
Last Year’s First Prize Winner
Alex McGowan
Boonerah Point Sunset
The Creator's Mark Art Prize 2024 was an opportunity for me to think about the incredible natural beauty of the Illawarra, to contemplate the theme of the competition (which was "Rhythms of Grace") and how I could translate this into an artwork that was a reflection of these elements. I found myself thinking about the rhythms of the natural world - the tide going in and out, the changing of day into night, and made a drawing of a view looking over Lake Illawarra with the sun setting over the escarpment. I had in mind Psalm 19:1-2 (MSG) which says "Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening." This psalm guided my process to create a work that I hoped would show the rhythms of nature and to provide a chance to pause and contemplate the glory all around us.
We really are blessed to be living in such a beautiful, awe-inspiring part of the world, and the Creator's Mark Art Prize is an event that invites us to rediscover and appreciate the gifts we are given.
Alex McGowan
