Organisers of the Chiltern Art Prize, Beth Peters and Kirrily Anderson, have co-ordinated a new website and marketing campaign for the show, attracting an extra 50 artists from as far as Queensland.

“It’s been known over the years as different things, we wanted to bring some consistency to the name and raise the bar a little bit,” Ms Anderson said. 

“We’ve focused on the look of the art show and used the work of Alison Percy, who is our artist in residence, for some of the branding.

“Having hat higher-quality look to it and promoting it more widely has attracted a high quality level of artwork.”

There are 385 works in the exhibition with Catherine Stewart, Erin Davis-Hartwig, Kay Davidson and Michael Laubli among the well-known names behind some of the pieces.

Ms Anderson said the entries were up for $3500 in prize money across five categories.

“A lot of entries are from Melbourne but mostly they are local – there’s so many strong artists locally,” she said.

“We have two- and three-dimensional categories, one for photography and an emerging artist category.

“The art is up for sale and prices range from $10 to $5000.

“We feel the entries this year are really strong and people will be really impressed with the standard on display.”