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The organisers of the Arts Gold Awards 2016 would like to congratulate Ira Mitchell-Kirk for achieving the most votes to win the $500 Viewers' Choice Award. We received well over 1,000 votes and it was quite a close contest, but Ira will be a happy to know her painting 'Wanaka Gold' proved the most popular work with the public. All those who voted went into the draw to win 6 bottles of Central Otago wine which will be announced via the Central Otago Arts Facebook page on Monday the 7th of December at 4pm.

Every second year the Central Otago District Arts Trust (CODAT) runs this national art awards for the visual arts and this time the competition attracted 205 entries, of which 50 were chosen as finalists by the judges. To view the 2015 galley click here.

The judges – Cam McCracken (Director of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery), Fiona Campbell (Director of the Real Art Roadshow), and Brian Wood (a Wellington-based independent art curator and writer) – chose the following winners:

• The $5000 Art Excellence Award was won by the Wellington photographer Elton Irving. His work was described by the judges as ''unusually beautiful''. 
• The award of $3000 for the top Central Otago entry was won by the Alexandra photographer Eric Schusser.
• Two merit awards of $1000 each were won by Luggate artist Brent Hollow and Justin Spiers from Dunedin.

The Arts Gold Awards Exhibition ended on 29 November and it won't happen again until 2017 but the organisers were very happy with how things went this time.