Long-running exhibition is 'keeping it fresh' on its 23rd birthday

There's "no theme, no restriction" - on medium or otherwise - "it's up to the artist," said Orchard, the show's curator and an exhibiting painter herself.

For the long-running exhibition, which began in 2000 and promotes works by northern painters and sculptors, it's been a recipe for success, and this year is no exception.

The exhibition opened on Friday, October 27, with a cocktail preview evening and silent auction for pieces; the money for which is distributed between Woolmers, the artists and charity Strike it Out.

For the show, Ms Orchard has curated more than 120 works, from ceramics to sculpture, oil to acrylic paintings, from 31 artists in the Frances Mary Archer Gallery within Woolmers' Nigel Peck Centre - all with the viewer in mind.

"Similar colours, similar styles, we match them up, because it has to be easy for the eye to go across the wall," she said.

The annual exhibition covers everything from figurative landscapes to more abstract representations, like Graeme Whittle's Sargasso, and oddities like animal portraits.

It's also a prestigious show: new works from a number of Glover Prize finalists are included, like Paul Becker, Sharon Davidson and Edna Broad, and other well-known northern artists have contributed - Sandra Henderson, Brad Quinn and Marilyn Thiesel.

Centre stage in the exhibition is City's Heart by Cheyne Purdue, a rendering of Launceston's Albert Hall, populated by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, who will perform at Woolmers in November.

And an exciting debutant has joined this year, Katie Barron, a self-described painter of "radical joy" who is presenting two pieces in her hyper realistic style: a plastic green, toy soldier with a popcorn-pluming gun called Popcorn Platoon and Bait and Stitch, an enormous tomato pincushion.

"I think it's going to be controversial, a real talking piece," Orchard said.

"We have a lot of traditional work but this will keep things fresh, which is what we're trying to do at Woolmers. I'm excited to see how the patrons react."

The Woolmers Estate Annual Art Exhibition is now open to the public from Wednesday through Sunday from 10am-3pm, until December 6.