RENOWNED artist Kathy Ellem is returning to the Surat on Balonne Gallery to exhibit her latest work, coinciding with the Cobb and Co Festival this month.

Since moving from Surat in 2015 to settle in northeast Victoria, Ellem has won numerous awards, including two major prizes in the annual Women Artists of the West exhibition (2018) in the United States and the National Equine Art Prize in 2017.

She also established the Kathy Ellem Fine Art gallery in her childhood home of Beechworth, where she both exhibits and conducts regular painting workshops.

Next week her Country of Beauty and Brawn exhibition will include her best new paintings and innovative plasma cutting sculptures.

Ellem said living in Surat gave her the passion and desire to create artwork which is focused on the more positive aspects of rural living.

"I was inspired by many exhibitions held in the little Surat on Balonne Gallery - most notably one by calligraphy artist Vanessa Crisp - I was so filled with inspiration that creating art became a compulsion,” she said.

"Feeling that farming communities are often misrepresented in media, my aim through art has been to remind people that there is a great side to life on the land, and to share the care that rural people have for their country.

"It takes a great deal of quiet strength and ingenuity to work on the land and my art symbolises that.”

While in Surat for the Cobb and Co Festival, Ellem will conduct two five-day workshops, sharing with students her best methods and secrets for creating realist paintings with vivid colour and light.

WHERE:

Surat on Balonne Gallery

WHEN:

Thursday, August 22, at 6pm.

CONTACT:

46265136.