Onkaparinga’s annual Surf Art exhibition opens on Friday 15 December, celebrating 30 years of both the exhibition and Port Noarlunga’s Arts Centre.
The annual celebration of Onkaparinga surfing culture, lifestyle, history and stunning coastal environment was first held in 1993, the same year the Arts Centre was officially opened in the old institute building on Gawler Street.
In the decades since, Surf Art has come to mark the beginning of summer, carving a place in the hearts and souls of the southern arts calendar and becoming one of the pivotal features of the Arts Centre’s annual program.
The exhibition even created history in 2013 by breaking a Guiness World Record for the longest line of surfboards, with local surf enthusiasts turning out in droves to line their boards up, nose to tail, for 783.5 metres along the sand at Port Noarlunga!
The Surf Art exhibition is open to all Australian artists celebrating the ocean, the coastal environment and the culture of all things related to surfing.
Scenes of the local coastal environment, or people enjoying the sun, sand and surf of the region’s beautiful coastline are staples in the exhibition, which typically includes a variety of media including painting in oil, acrylic and watercolour; jewellery; mosaics; photography; glassware; ink; textiles and sculpture.
This year’s exhibition kicks off on Friday 15 December from 6pm, with works from 59 artists featuring in both the centre’s Onkaparinga and Red Rover Galleries. It runs, for free, until Friday 29 January 2024.
You can even buy your own piece of Surf Art history—whether to hang on your wall or for a perfect Christmas gift for someone special—at the Surf Art Christmas Market in the Arts Centre’s performance space from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 16 December.
Local artists will be showcasing and selling their work—ranging from paintings, prints, jewellery and homewares—for one day only.
About the Arts Centre
Previously the Port Noarlunga Institute, which opened in 1924, the Arts Centre as its now known has played an important role in the creative and cultural life of the region through its performance space. It was previously the only movie theatre in the Fleurieu Peninsula, continuing to show movies through until the 1980s.
This important community role has continued today with the Arts Centre becoming a vital hub for the arts in the south. The Arts Centre blends support for local artists with a programming mix of entertainers and performances from outside the region, providing community with access to shows they may not otherwise have an opportunity to experience.
Pictured
Some of the works on display at the 2022 Surf Art exhibition at the Port Noarlunga Arts Centre.