Rangiora artist Rose Rudd was named premier winner at the 2025 Ashburton Society of Arts Awards on Monday night.
The awards, at the Ashburton Art Gallery, are an annual highlight on Mid Canterbury’s art calendar.
Rudd said her painting, Nothing but Rain and Still I Rode, is an abstract acrylic, oil and wax work based on her experience of riding the Otago Central Rail Trail in her favourite weather of driving southerly rain earlier this year.
‘‘It’s portraying a feeling of being immersed in atmospheric cold misty weather in the Otago hills.’’
She said for her $3000 work to have won the competition had been a surprise, as there was so many fellow artists entered she looked up to.
‘‘I’m still sitting here in disbelief,’’ she said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, winner of the Rosebank Village Local Award was Judith Sommerville of Methven, with her mixed media work Clematis in Horopito.
The keen tramper said the clematis flower is a feature of the high country each spring.
‘‘I was very pleased (to win) as it is a piece of Mid Canterbury’s backyard,’’ Sommerville said.
Organiser Kay Begg said about 140 artists from throughout New Zealand were represented in the awards, which featured about 350 art works.
‘‘It’s just indicative of what a good reputation our exhibition has, everybody speaks highly of it,’’ Begg said.
It was the society’s 61st annual exhibition.
All works are all for sale and will remain on display at the gallery until August 1.
