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Last modified: 29 Jul 2020 10:24am

An extravaganza of art will be celebrated and created during the inaugural Selwyn Arts Festival.

The arts festival, which runs from 11–20 October, will feature demonstrations, workshops, a live art competition and a guided gallery tour.

District Arts coordinator Becca Bouffandeau says the festival will give people a chance to see a different perspective on art in the district. “Selwyn has a lot of great art and artists, but often we don’t know them, they’re just a signature in the corner of a painting. The festival will give people a chance to meet the artists, see them work or make something fun themselves.”

Opportunities to get up close and personal will begin with a wearable arts show featuring local and national talent on 12 October and an Art Crawl the next day visiting Selwyn’s three art galleries.

The tour offers visitors a chance to meet artists and gallery managers and even be the subject of their own work of art by portrait artist Sam Wakelin.

Mr Wakelin will be drawing free portraits for visitors to the Lakeland Gallery from 10.30am–3.30pm.

There will be a wide array of workshops throughout the festival from carving, weaving, fashion and photography to an opportunity to create with no rules.

The festival will build on Darfield Artweek which will run throughout the festival, showcasing more than 300 mixed media artworks from 120 New Zealand artists at the Darfield Recreation Centre.

A full programme of events and where to buy tickets can be found on our arts festival page.