BRAIDWOOD photographer Frank Lindner has won the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council’s $5000 Acquisitive Art Award for a portrait artwork, “Virus Prepper”, it was announced last night (May 12) at The Q Exhibition Space.

Lindner said it was “thrilling to receive the award for a private photo,” adding: “It began as a family portrait. Nonetheless, it was this image that captured the anticipation as to how we were going to have to adapt to the impending lockdown mandates. The notion or hint at super hero was intended if only to shadow the inevitable discomfort we were about to experience with humour.”

This year’s judges, Sarah Schmidt, from the Canberra Museum and Gallery, and Yvette Dal, from Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, said: “The artist somehow captures the zeitgeist where we experience the mundane/domestic and unprecedented/alien worlds colliding.”

The QPRC team leader for Culture, Arts and Museums, Janita Byrne, described the winning artwork, which will now join the council’s art collection, as “a visual time capsule of our covid era.”

Other winners included: the $1000 Bendigo Pick Award won by Braidwood artist Kate Carruthers for her oil painting “Rain on the Way”; The $2000 Emerging Artist Award for 18-to-29-year olds won by Wamboin artist Mahala Hill for her sculptural work “Mutated I”.

The $3000 3D Award was won by Krawarree artist Karen Warburton for “Upcycle”, a three-dimensional wooden assemblage wall-work.

There is still the $1000 People’s Choice Award, judged during the remainder of the show at The Q Exhibition Space, Queanbeyan, until June 11.