This is the last weekend to catch about 80 Sunshine Coast artists on a diverse exhibition at the annual Friends of the Gallery (FOG) show at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt.
Each artist is permitted to show only one work - it could be a masterpiece or it could be experimental to elicit viewer reaction. There's no jury to pass pronouncement on the work, so in the spirit of the many Academy Award/ Grammy/Golden Globe extravaganzas on right now, here are the Foggie awards.
Most interesting use of mediums award is tied between Halfmoon Bay's Elaine Hunter with her digital photo on metal and Dean Van't Schip's Sunlit Cedar, photography on glass. Both create a stunning visual effect and raise photography to new levels.
Most whimsical award goes to Carol LaFave for her pastel houses on sunny streets. Gertrude Pacific tells the best story of the show by depicting her love of gardening and nature in her painting Submersion.
The elephant you most want in the room award goes to Betty Keller for her ceramic pachyderm, Jumbo.
Heather Waddell also takes the dessert cake for her Crème Caramel Mousse, a frothy, honey-coloured bull moose in ceramic.
The show features more word play from the creative mind of Junco Jan. Her assemblage Airing Dirty Laundry gets the X-rated award. The recycled T-shirts sitting in the laundry hamper are tough guys who curse and go to heavy metal concerts.
Pat Forst's piece The Sun Pours Down Like Honey is a clay and burnt umber stain wall hanging that earns her the clay comes alive award.
Kudos to Helen Broadfoot's oil painting of otters and Hiroshi Shima-zaki's Sun's Playground, a view from Mount Daniel rendered in watercolour.
Jone Pane's painting of Rolling on the Floor Laughing should pique the interest of anyone who has ever typed ROTFL in response to an e-mail. So that's what it looks like!
Anna Banana should be awarded the most definitive micro autobiography award. Her block of art stamps, neatly framed, covers art events and wild parties in Banana's career from 1971 to 2009.
Paul Clancy earns the every traveller's nightmare award with his digitally manipulated photograph, Resort. The photo depicts row after row of mind-numbing, identical balconies that loom from the side of a high-rise building.
The surreal Alanna Wood receives the invoking Salvador Dali award for her Landscape Painting, a giant brush that literally paints the landscape.
The forest depictions category has many terrific nominees. Dougald MacDonald's acrylic of Old Forest Mount Elphinstone vies with Sheila Page's Forest Floor in acrylic. But my vote goes to June Malaka's Sun Split, acrylic on canvas that captures the light through the trees exquisitely. It's got my vote as best in show. And if this award parody earns me the she's so not an art critic award, then that's fine.
The FOG show is on until this Sunday only at the Arts Centre's Doris Crowston Gallery, corner of Trail and Medusa in Sechelt. The next show opens Feb. 6 when the Quilters Out of Bounds present A Walk in the Forest.
