AN IMPRESSIVE 500 artists applied to take part in this year’s Williamstown Festival Contemporary Art Prize.

Applicants came from as far as Ireland and Germany, including 14 Hobsons Bay artists.

Paul White took out the Hobsons Bay Local Artist Award for a pencil on paperwork drawing, while Brunswick artist Carmen Reid won the djprojects $10,000 award for her sculpture.

Ms Reid said university encouraged her to make large works of art “because I can”.

She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT before doing an Honours year at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Her works begin with structurally sound objects, like doors or window frames, and then she reconfigures them with other elements to make them fictional.

“You can imagine seeing something out of the corner of your eye and then you look again and it’s different,” she said.

Ms Reid would like to use the award prize to travel to some of the places that inspired her works, including Rome’s architecture, and to produce new pieces of work.

Competition judge and director of Tarra Warra Museum of Art, Jane Scott said the standard of artist was of very high quality.

More than 100 works of art are on display at Newport’s Substation until 28 March, from Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm.