An art exhibition that celebrated the lives and significance of women in the Bible in honour of this year’s International Women’s Day had seen young emerging artists recognised for their contribution.

Monmouth Rotary President, Debra Lake, a wicker artist herself, presented a certificate and a £100 prize for ‘Young Emerging Artist’ to Sophie Zhang.

For four days, Monmouth Baptist Church hosted the works of talented artists from all over the country as well as a series of evening talks by local authors, Ann Brown and Katharine Swartz and historian-theologian, Dr Amanda Russell-Jones.

Organised by the ‘Art Fringe’ to celebrate International Women’s Day, it asked Christian and non-Christian artists to look at biblical women and their narratives and to see what they made of the stories and how they would have turned it into an artistic piece.

Professional artists and non-professional artists and beginners all contributed to the exhibition with an eclectic mixture of collage, paintings, a wicker exhibit and an expression through the medium of dance.

This was done by Amana Greaves who recognised that a woman, Mary Magdalene, was the first witness to Jesus’s resurrection and portray this through dance, believing that dance was an excellent way to express the range of emotions that Mary went through on Easter morning.

She has been dancing since she was four-years-old and was awarded second place in Rotary’s young-emerging artist category.

First place and a £100 prize was given to Sophie Zhang whose painting had the ‘wow’ factor according to Rotary President Debra Lake.

One of the aims of Rotary worldwide is to help promote and create a pathway for young girls and women, empowering girls all around the world.

Presenting a certificate to Sophie, Debra said: “It’s a great pleasure to give this to Sophie Zhang, her piece stood out with the imagery and colour”.

Speaking of Amana’s entry, she said it was a very close, “really difficult, we had a lot of discussion, it is so different, this is the first time we’ve had this exhibition and it’s just like going to a pop-up art exhibition as there’s always an installation that has really good work, the video is a completely different channel of art and I absolutely loved it”.