Chris-Anne Alcantara wins ‘Our Gibraltar’ competition

Artist Chris-Anne Alcantara won the coveted Ministry of Culture Award at this year’s annual ‘Our Gibraltar’ competition was presented by the Minister for Culture, Dr John Cortes.

The competition is produced by Gibraltar Cultural Services on behalf of the Self Determination for Gibraltar Group and is in association with the Fine Arts Association and the Gibraltar Photographic Society.

Ms Alcantara’s painting ‘Park-Life’, which was created with the help of her four-year-old daughter Ava, will form part of Gibraltar’s archives and is one of the 77 pieces of art submitted by 35 artists. A cheque for £2,000 and a trophy was presented to her at the launch of the exhibition.

The Our Gibraltar Art Award, with a prize of £750, was won by Willie Chiappe for his painting ‘Old House: Flat Bastion Road’. Winning the Our Gibraltar Photography Award, out of 137 photos submitted by 42 photographers, was Donavan Torres with his photograph ‘Boys of Summer’. Mr Torres was presented with a cheque for £750.

The following were Highly Commended. Gavin Garcia for ‘Los Pescadores de Ayer’, Albert Danino for ‘After the Rain’, Cristina Rodriguez for ‘2 M Visits’, Liz Flynn with ‘Breast-feeding’ and Joanne Bossano with ‘Leisure Centre’.

Speaking at the launch, Dr Cortes commented on the importance of National Day.

“These days are extraordinary days, let’s hope they pass quickly and I think it is particularly important that we continue with this exhibition,” Dr Cortes said.

“National Day as we all know is a very important date in our calendar. This year it is going to be very different, we won’t be able to have the kind of celebration we have [had] before but we have plenty to celebrate and we can celebrate in different ways.”

“This is one celebration, it is our identity, captured by artists, captured by photographic artists, as photographers are such, as much artists as others, just a different way of expressing it and capturing moments.”

The exhibition featuring the artworks and photographs will be held at the Fine Arts Gallery in Casemates and is open to the public from Wednesday, August 26 to Friday September 25, weekdays from 10am to 2pm and 3pm to 6pm.

A feature on the winners will be published in Thursday’s edition.