Green Room: Top dogs at Roche gallery | SALA award winners | UKARIA’s Stradivari gift
South Australian arts and culture news in brief.
Good dogs
An unexpectedly poignant portrait of a nonagenarian Pointer breeder with his three surviving pooches has taken out the David Roche Gallery’s inaugural Australian Photographic Dog Prize.
Billed as “the nation’s only biennial art prize dedicated to domestic dogs” and a tribute to the gallery’s famously canine-loving namesake, the competition fielded 250 entries from around the country, with 80 finalists recognised across the categories Dog portraits, Dogs and companions, Dogs in action, and Puppies.
Adelaide photographer Alicia Adamopoulos fetched the $5000 top prize for her portrait of 96-year-old Hahndorf breeder Des Delaine with his last three dogs, which the judges praised for its “emotional pull”.
“This photograph is very poignant, with a sombre colour treatment and excellent storytelling by emphasising a lifetime of memories in the background,” judge Alex Cearns OAM said. “It successfully creates an end of the era atmosphere. The composition is beautiful with the dogs almost circling their human.”
Isabella Rogers took out the Young Photographer prize for her portrait of her grandmother, Mavis, and her dog Darcy.
“I spent the day with my nana and wanted to capture the bond between her and her dog. Darcy is very special to my nana as she got her after the passing of her partner.”
Announced on Friday, Rogers then had to skip across town for the opening of the South Australian Museum’s Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year exhibition, where she also took out the Junior category for a snap of two galahs on a lamppost at dawn.
Our inbox is primed and ready for Australia’s first biennial cat photography prize. Your move, Adelaide art institutions.
You might like
Audiences can see all the winning shots at the Best in Show 2025: Australian Photographic Dog Prize exhibition, which continues at David Roche Gallery until October 25.
SALA Festival 2025 Award winners
The South Australian Living Artists Festival has come and gone for another year, but not before recognising the top tier of local creatives at the festival’s annual awards.
Topping this year’s list of winners was Cynthia Schwertsik, whose ‘Green Wash’ exhibition took out the $5,000 City of Adelaide Award, while Carolyn Corletto claimed another $5,000 for her Contemporary Art Award-winning work ‘Seriously they are just boobs’.
City of Adelaide Award
Cynthia Schwertsik
The Advertiser Contemporary Art Award
Carolyn Corletto
City Rural Emerging Artists Award
Awarded to Amanda Seacombe
Inspiring SA Science in Art Award
Peter Syndicas
The City of Unley Active Ageing Award
Sally Parnis
The Don Dunstan Foundation Award
Dave Laslett
Guildhouse Artist’s Choice Award
Thom Buchanan
Subscribe for updates
SALA In Lights Award
Tony Kearney
The festival also named Troy-Anthony Baylis as next year’s SALA feature artist, who will be the subject of monograph penned by Sasha Grbich and Tikari Rigney. View the full list of SALA Awards finalists here.
Adelaide artist picked for Print Council of Australia award
Andrea Przygonski has been selected as one of only five artists from across Australia and New Zealand recognised by the 2025 Print Council of Australia Print Commission Award. For over 50 years the Print Council of Australia has invited contemporary artists to create new editions of original prints for the annual Print Commission.
This is the second time Przygonski – an established visual artist and InReview team member – has been selected, first in 2009 as an emerging artist and now again in 2025. Przygonski’s work, entitled Behind the Wall of Sleep, is a five-colour screen print, printed at her home studio, Little Sparrow Studios. The work explores feelings and experiences in dream states, whether that be during sleep or in moments of deep reverie.
The works will be shown from September 11 – 14 at the Sydney Contemporary art fair.
UKARIA lands another 300-year-old violin
UKARIA Cultural Centre has named the first recipient of its latest centuries-old instrument, a 1709 Stradivari violin gifted earlier this year by an anonymous donor. The violin has a long history, crafted in Cremona, Italy, by Antonio Stradivari at the peak of his powers, before being acquired by Danish violinist Frida Schytte near the turn of the 20th century – it’s Schytte’s nickname, ‘Scotta’, that gives the ‘Scotta’ Stradivari its name.
125 years later, British violinist Anthony Marwood has been named as its latest custodian.
“The first notes I played on the Scotta jolted me with thrilling and electric energy – I was diving into a broad sound-world of colours: tragic depths and glistening brilliance, instantly gratifying but full of promises of secrets that could be unlocked,” Marwood says. “There are places I can go to with this instrument that are uncharted territory for me. The greater the instrument, the more potential there is for you to become your best self as a player. I feel so lucky to have this door opened for me.”
UKARIA has a long history of acquiring and equipping musicians with historic instruments, including a set of four by 16th century luthier Giovanni Battista Guadagnini held in trust by UKARIA and currently played by the Australian String Quartet. That project raised a total of $6,183,188 from donors to land the rare instruments.
The value of the ‘Scotta’ Stradivari has not been disclosed, but local audiences can experience its musical value when Marwood returns to UKARIA on Sunday September 14 alongside James Crabb, Rohan Dasika, and a string quartet from the Australian National Academy of Music.
The Art of Dying
Fulfilling South Australia’s ‘Festival State’ mantra to the very end, the SA Death Festival is back next month for its second incarnation on Sunday October 2025 at Centennial Park. As a prelude to the festival, The Art of Dying will open at Centennial Park from September 22, featuring a range of local artists working across painting, photography, jewellery and ceramics to reflect upon the end of life. All artists will be donating upwards of 50% of sales to support the work of Death Festival organisers Pure Land Hospice.
This year’s artists include Cathy Brooks, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Wojciak, Faith Porter, Kelly Allison, Linda Lee, Louise Feneley, Monika Morgenstern, Nicola Semmens, Olivia Dryden, Peter Fisher, Sheree Wright, Violet Cooper – you can view the full online gallery now. Find out more about the SA Death Festival here.
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected]