Works by 140 different artists were brought together for this year’s Wānaka Arts Labour Weekend Exhibition, which featured art from a range of disciplines, selected by the Wānaka Arts team.

Each Labour Weekend artists and patrons head to the Lake Wānaka Centre to view the Wānaka Arts’ cornerstone event, and this year’s lineup of artists was its biggest yet.

“Every year we get bigger and bigger,” Wānaka Arts president Gaynor Corkey said.

More than 400 pieces were featured over the exhibition weekend. 

Each year the exhibition features a resident artist and this year leading contemporary painter John Walsh was selected.

“He has spanned several genres in his art career,” Gaynor said. “He was a portrait painter, a muralist, and he worked for Te Papa as a curator for Māori art.”

Wānaka Arts Society president Gaynor Corkey.

Now he draws on his unique heritage to create works that are “very mythical and ethereal,” she said.

This year’s guest artists included Clyde-based painter Neil Driver and Cromwell-based landscape artist Rachel Hirabayashi.

“We're very proud to have artists of this calibre living nearby and it's great to be able to show their work off in pride of place,” Gaynor said.

Artists working across a range of mediums, from weaving to ceramics and jewellery, were all part of the exhibition.

Twelve awards were also given out for stand-out works selected by the judges.

Last weekend marked Wānaka Arts’ 44th Labour Weekend Exhibition.

Wanaka Arts is a non-profit organisation serving to promote and support our local arts and artists. Learn more here.

PHOTOS: Wānaka App