The opening of the Port Lincoln Art Prize at the Civic Centre revealed a variety of high-quality works, ranging from paintings and drawings, to sculptural pieces.

"It's really interesting to see the depth in the show, there's a real vast majority of different subjects and content," said this year's judge of the prize, Annalise Rees.

The artist and Head of Drawing at Adelaide Central School of Art said she approached the judging carefully, viewing and re-viewing the works before selecting Julie Corfe's painted portrait as the winner.

"I thought this particular work, it had an edge to it which quite interested me, it was quirky and quite a tough portrait".

Julie said she felt 'great joy' to win the prize for her painting titled 'The Heart of the matter'.

The work features her son's friend Michael Budstrup, a drummer in the popular Adelaide comic band 'The Beards', lying back on a chaise longue holding a rose.

Annalise said she was impressed by the technique used in the painting, which teamed a representational style with decorative and patterned elements.

"I thought she combined those quite well, as well as some really fantastic colour combinations.

"There was just something that kind of tickled me in that I thought it was not your average portrait, and beyond just being technically sound it had a great strong idea behind it."

Julie currently lives in the Adelaide Hills, but entering the Local art prize helps her maintain a link with Port Lincoln, where she worked early in her art career.

"I know that a lot of my friends will be coming here to see it and they tell me about my work here and it just keeps up the connection between me and Port Lincoln."

Julie said the city's art community has evolved a lot since she taught painting and drawing at the Port Lincoln TAFE during her 20's.

"They hadn't had much tertiary tuition before I came here so I was glad to show them a lot of film and slides and open the world up to them, but now I see they've really progressed on and it's been really good from that time."

Two highly commended paintings

Highly commended prizes were awarded to Tim Coote, for his painting 'Between dogs and wolves', and Marilyn Mayne for the piece 'Bushfire aftermath'.

"Marilyn's was a large abstract piece which really looked at the colour and the sense of openness, and perhaps the devestation, after a bushfire," Annalise said.

"There's some beauty in that as well, so I think she captured that well with her palette that she'd used and looking at shape."

In contrast the work by Tim Coote was a tonal realist street scene of a cafe exterior, painted during his time living in France.

"It was a lovely kind of mysterious work but it had I guess layers of story to it in a way that the more you looked at the painting there were little details that more and more revealed," Annalise said.

Impressed by the selection of work, Annalise said judging an art prize can be difficult, as all judges bring their subjective view.

"That is of course why you have a different judge every year because that particular judge will bring their own perspective and flavour to the selection."

But she did believe there were some common qualities between good works regardless of the medium or the subject, and this guided the selection.

Annalise said strong pieces have a good combination of sound material and technical skill, and ideas behind why the artist has used that medium to describe the story of the work.

"So whatever the idea or the concept that the artist is interested in, then it seems to be the most appropriate medium or material choice to speak about that."

Value to regional art

During her time in Port Lincoln Annalise praised the role of regional art events, which she values having grown up in a rural community of the south coast of Kangaroo Island.

She said competitions such as the Port Lincoln Art Prize offer a great chance for local artists to participate, and for the wider community to get exposed to different types of art.

"Of course it's always going to be the artists or those people who are interested in art who will support it, but I think there's also a whole range of other people who are genuinely interested.

"It gives them an opportunity to come and view works and perhaps see something, learn something or just think something that they haven't before."

Annalise encouraged the public to put effort into viewing the work, taking on the responsibility to respect and explore why the artist has taken the time to create the work.

"You should always approach a work with an open mind as best you can, and be prepared to do a little bit of work.

"Take some time to think about what the artist has done, why you think they've done it that way, what they might be trying to say, and whether you think they've done that in a successful way or not."

The exhibition is on show in the Civic Centre's Walter Nicholls Memorial Gallery and Rotary Gallery until the 10th February. Open from 10-4 Monday to Saturday, and 1-4 on Sundays.