VICTORIAN artist Tony Sowersby has a thing about coming to Tasmania by boat.
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"The best night's sleep I ever get is on that boat in a cabin," Sowersby, of Seaford, said at Evandale yesterday.
"I first did the trip in 1969 and it was a massive storm, and me and one other guy were the only two that didn't get seasick, and I fell in love with it."
Sowersby's love for coming to the state on the Spirit of Tasmania was one of the reason why his acrylic on canvas Glover finalist work Leaving the Island was based on Devonport.
He said he came to Tasmania a lot and had been in the state with his wife since Friday for the Glover Prize for landscape.
The $40,000 prize was won by former New Norfolk artist Mark Rodda for his painting of the highlands titled South From the Labyrinth to Mount Olympus and Lake St Clair.
Rodda's work and those by the other 41 finalists are on show at Evandale's Falls Park Pavilion until tomorrow at 4pm.
Sowersby said one of the things that made the Glover so attractive was that artists could sell their paintings as well as show.
"At some of the other big shows across Australia, that's not possible," he said.
"The organisers should be commended for that."
Sowersby's nightscape work was one of a number to sell within the first 24 hours of the exhibition opening and accounted for $7200 of the $130,000 worth of all works sold so far.