Toowoomba Grammar Art Show opened to the public on Friday 29 March. Figures from the show continued on an upward rend with 360, or 42 per cent of entries, selling for a record $160,200.

Art Show president Pam Brown said she was “extremely happy. “Our statistics have been going up each year and selling such a healthy percentage of the pieces of art we had is a very high figure on national basis. That means we had a lot of art that people wanted, which is of course our objective.”

Last weekend marked the final year of Pam’s decade as Art Show president but she will be remaining on the board to ensure that a smooth transition takes place. “It has been a wonderful and very rewarding experience with the Art Show being more successful as each year has gone by,” Pam said.

Melbourne-based artist Suzi Redman, who revealed that the “nature within animals inspires her”, was the feature artist for this year’s event. Her 12 works – which all sold were acrylic on board – greeted those attending the art show as they entered the auditorium. Demonstrating Suzi’s affinity with animals her entries had titles such as Black Hereford, Burrowing Owl , Sleeping Fox, Three Travelling Geese and Hare Leaping.

Another new exhibitor from Melbourne was Antoinette Ferwerda, who is renowned as a favourite of many interior designers and stylists.
Antoinette’s three contributions were mixed media on canvas and her prices ranged from $1400 to $5000. The most expensive works, acrylic on canvas, at the art show were by contemporary aboriginal artist Chern’ee Sutton with her Butterfly Dreaming and Fresh, Salt Water Dreaming, being priced at $8500. The two other offerings by Chern’ee – The Kookaburra and Jabiru and Frog Dreaming, which were also acrylic on canvas, were available at $8000, which were the next highest prices of the show.

As always the inner circle, with a showing of an array of classic works of beauty and quality, was a focal point. Antionette Ferwarda’s Rose Cloud – her most expensive entry – was the premier attraction in the inner circle. There was also an interesting display of botanicals as well as cricket and tennis paintings in the inner circle, which were appealing to enthusiasts of those sports.