Welcome back art lovers!! It’s been another busy month for us and a great month for artists and collectors alike.
There have been lots of Art exhibitions and competitions held during the last few weeks and Ace Art has been involved in most of them so will give you the run down.
We finished last month’s article telling you about our Wine Art Club featuring local multidiscipline artist Naomi Martinez and International street photographer Marco Prizont. Both artists showcased their work at The Wine Shop alongside some specially selected wines from Tony. It was a great night and a fantastic turnout, everyone enjoyed looking at and hearing about Naomi’s digital ‘Taking Liberties with Colour’ series whilst Marco released his new ‘Sombras de Gibraltar’ collection which is exclusive to Ace Art.
Naomi has been on fire recently and is fast becoming one of Gibraltar’s top selling artists. We have shipped her artwork to various countries around the world and she is constantly exhibiting and receiving awards both in Gibraltar and Spain.
You can see some of Naomi’s work on our website and also at the Spring Visual Exhibition organised by the Ministry of Culture. This is one of my favourite local competitions as it combines various mediums ranging from paintings, photography, media and sculptures. The sunny weather normally accompanies the artists during this competition and that can be seen on the artworks as they are mostly bright colourful pieces on show. This year I have noticed more photographic entries in the competition, possibly influenced by our very own Ace Art Revolution exhibition which featured various Photographers. Glad to see our hard work is inspiring local artists just like we intended and pushing the boundaries of what we call art.
The Minister for Culture, the Hon John Cortes presented the awards and reiterated how pleased he was to see so many art and cultural events going on in Gibraltar. The Spring Visual Exhibition held at Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery received 117 entries by 63 different artists. The Ministry of Culture award went to Julian Osborne with his piece ‘Red and White’. The controversial sculpture ‘El Turno’ by Stefano Blanco was awarded best sculpture, Mark Montovio’s ‘Ocean of Eden’ was awarded best Photograph and the Video award went to Stephen Perera.
The Minister for Culture was back on duty to present awards at the 34th Gibraltar Heritage Exhibition held at John Mackintosh Hall. I was very pleased to be asked to adjudicate the competition alongside John Langdon and Manolo Galliano. This year’s theme was the Southern Defence Walls and registered artists had from 9am till 5pm to create their plein air paintings. Unfortunately the good weather didn’t accompany the artists on this occasion and it poured with rain all day! The artists were allowed to finish their paintings at home after getting some initial sketches and pictures for reference. Some braved the conditions and stuck it out all day despite the rain; this dedication did not go unnoticed by the organisers who presented them with a special prize which was funnily enough an umbrella!
It was a hard task to judge the competition but by the end we managed to agree and awarded the 1st prize to Paul Passano, the 2nd Prize to Jenna Lopez and the 3rd Prize Francesco Aurelio. Up and coming young artist Stella Bosano scooped most of the junior categories taking 1st and 2nd place with her two entries. She was also awarded the David Gladstone Prize for most promising artist, definitely one to watch. Congratulations to the winners and everyone who took part this year.
For more information on our services, events and artists visit our page www.aceart.gi and follow us on social media @aceart.gi
