Now she can refer to herself as local artist and soon, she hopes to add award winning to that title.

Her latest work, Audrey’s Fire, will be included in this year’s Norvill Art Prize. The exclusive exhibition is by invitation only and while the $10,000 prize money would be very welcomed, Hope is pleased just to have her work invited.

Artists from throughout Australia submit their work via photograph and successful artists are invited to submit their work for the Murrurundi exhibition.

The only person more excited than Hope about her Norvill Art Prize success, is fine arts teacher at the Singleton TAFE campus, Dorothy Wishney.

“It is a massive achievement to be included and as far as I know, none of my other students have achieved this, it is an enormous accolade in itself and Hope should be very pleased with how far she has come already, this is a real encouragement” Ms Wishney said.

The Norvill Art Prize is a collaboration between Peter Norvill OAM, known for his solo world flight back in 1988 and the Murrurundi Arts Council. Over time, the Norvill Art Prize has become one of Australia’s most prestigious landscape art prizes.

Hope’s work Audrey’s Fire is a contemporary, experimental landscape of Audrey Wilkinson’s Vineyard. Hope and other students in the local Certificate III class took a trip to the vineyard to experience painting on scene.

It was after a fire had gone through part of the landscape, that the students made the trip, the impact of the fire obvious in Hope’s work.

Hope has been pleased to have had the opportunity to explore her creative talents under the guidance of the Singleton campus art courses. She has been a TAFE student for seven years and is completing the last of the courses this semester.

The Murrurundi Art Prize is on exhbiition at the RSL Gallery at Murrurundi from October 25 to November 16.