Dave Groom has been announced the winner of the Lethbridge Landscape prize for 2025. The acquisitive prize of $30 000 was awarded to Dave for his oil painting Central Flow. With over 800 entries and 56 finalists, Dave’s work was selected from the final highly commended works as the overall winner. The painting is featured at Lethbridge Gallery from the 9th to the 25th May. The gallery is at 136 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington, Brisbane. Opening hours 9am-5pm Tues-Fri. 10am-3pm Sat.
This is what the judges had to say about Daves work –
“An expansive, immersive panorama, this work draws the viewer into a thriving forest scene where ancient trees twist and reach toward the sky, their trunks rendered with a precise sculptural intensity. Groom’s use of scale and perspective evoke the sensation of standing on the forest floor, looking upward. Surrounded by life, ferns unfurling, one can almost hear the birds in the distance; taste the soft blanket of mist; feel the soil and roots underfoot.
What elevates this painting beyond technical mastery is its quiet reverence. There is a spiritual quality to the composition – a stillness that suggests a deep listening to country and a slow passage of time. It is not a romanticised vision of the landscape, but one that honours the complexity, decay and regeneration.
This years winning work is a testament to Groom’s deep connection to place and his ability to render the natural world not only as it appears, but as it feels. It is a work that commands both attention and contemplation, and one that lingers long after you’ve looked away.”
