The clear night sky of Coonabarabran inspired the creation of this year’s winner of the SPACE gallery’s Star Art Competition.

SPACE announced the winner of its annual Star Art competition on Thursday, 19 October.

This year’s theme was ‘monochrome’, which gallery manager Katie Noonan described as, “any colour within the tones of that colour, from black to white.”

Naomi Taylor was awarded the first-place cash prize for this competition with her beautiful artwork on the starry night sky, with black as her essential colour.

“I did it because I enjoy painting and wanted to do something for myself,” Naomi said.

“I haven’t done something that large before, so I was just really surprised to win.”

Throughout the process of creating her artwork, Naomi received guidance from Katie and previously participated in a six-week ‘Introduction to Acrylics’ course run by the SPACE Gallery.

“Katie gave me some tips and hints on different types of brushes and techniques to try to get the look I was going for,” she said.

“I didn’t even know to put gesso on it, so the course helped a lot, especially with the fundamentals of painting.”

As a child, Naomi loved arts and crafts and did a lot of drawing and sketching.

“Painting was something I stopped doing since I left school and then sort of picked back up after having kids and more free time,” she said.

“I find it to be relaxing, it’s sort of like my ‘me’ time.”

Naomi was born and raised in Coonabarabran. After attending university at Newcastle she then moved to Sydney. Recently, she moved back to her home town with her family.

She stated that what inspired her most when creating her artwork was Coonabarabran’s beautiful night sky.

“My husband started working up at the observatory and I went to have a look at all the different photos on the walls up there, it sort of inspired me.

“Here you can actually see the stars in the sky at night, which is so different compared to Sydney.”

One piece of advice Naomi received from Katie that assisted her when starting out was to “move away from perfectionism”.

“I think the advice I’d offer those who want to give painting a go is to just get a canvas and give it a go,” Naomi said.

“It might not always look exactly how you want it to the first time – but that’s okay.”