WARRNAMBOOL artist Madeleine Peters has won the $2000 Warrnibald prize, beating 39 other entrants including her own mother.

Peters, 24, had spent weeks working on her winning entry, an oil painting of Standard journalist and musician Matt Neal.

She said she had chosen Neal, a friend, because of his involvement in the music scene as well as his work at the newspaper. 

“I thought about people that I wanted to paint and I felt there was a lot of dialogue going on about journalists in Warrnambool at the time,” she said.

“He does a lot of work in a lot of different areas.”

Peters first completed a number of sketches and photos of Neal to work out how to arrange the portrait.

“I went and worked on a bunch of other paintings of him that I didn’t end up using and painted over or are sitting in my studio, and decided that that was the painting that I wanted to finish.

“It sat in my studio for about a month and I’d work on it, in between other paintings, for about half an hour every couple of days.

“I like portraiture because it’s personal and a challenge to try and capture the person rather.” 

Peters’ love of art was inspired by her mother. “My mother’s a painter and I grew up painting with her,” she said.

Her mother, Rachel Peters, had also entered the Warrnibald with a portrait of Emma Charlton, the F Project president and Deakin University lecturer.

“Her portrait was great. She puts me to shame. She got back from a trip from East Timor the night before the Warrnibald was due...Emma came around and she painted it the night before and handed it in. 

“I’d been working on mine for weeks and she just whipped it up in a couple of hours. It was beautiful.”

The Warrnibald Art Prize made a welcome return to art scene this year after a hiatus in 2014.

Peters, who has studied painting at RMIT in Melbourne, grew up in Warrnambool and has only recently returned to the seaside city.

She said she had won a few small art awards in the past but nothing as big as the $2000 Warrnibald Art Prize. 

“The entries were so incredible,” she said.

“It was such a lovely night. The room was full of amazing people. I think it rekindled a feel of artistic spirit in Warrnambool.”

About 300 people attended the Warrnibald opening on Friday night, which served as the Warrnambool Art Gallery’s re-opening after Fun4Kids as well as the launch of Kathryn Ryan’s exhibition A Quiet Place.

The Warrnibald exhibition will remain on display until August 16.

Voting for the people’s choice award – AKA the Archibool – will be open for the next two weeks, with the winner to be declared on August 7.