TWO DORSET artists are celebrating after being shortlisted for a prestigious art prize.

Alex Lowery from Fernhill, described as 'the poet of the Dorset coast', was shortlisted for his oil on canvas 'West Bay 293' and Debbie Lee from Langton for her oil on canvas 'Sadness'.

Now they have to wait to see if they are the winners of the £15,000 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, the UK’s leading competition for British contemporary representational painting and drawing.

The prize is awarded for representational art – works which seek to capture the real world – and offers total prize money of £30,000, comprising a first prize of £15,000 and a gold medal, second prize of £4,000 alongside the newly introduced People’s Prize worth £2,000. Young artists aged 25-or-under compete for the Young Artist Award of £4,000.

More than 80 artists have been shortlisted out of 1,144 who entered this year’s competition and represents the highest level of entries in the prize’s 13-year history.

The eventual winners will be announced on March 5 at the Mall Galleries in London where all the shortlisted work will be exhibited from March 5-17.

Ian Rowley, chairman of the organising committee, said: “This year, we’ve been staggered by the quality of the entries. There’s a tremendous diversity to the works combined with some bold approaches."