A COLLABORATIVVE duo from Gloucestershire and Somerset have won this year's Broadway Arts Festival Open art competition.

The prestigious John Singer Sargent prize was won by artists Debbie Locke, from Uley near Dursley, and Sara Dudman, from Blagdon Hill, inTaunton, Somerset, for their work‘Farmer-cam in Barn 03:00-04:00′.

They claimed the £1,000 prize which is sponsored by John Noott Galleries, in Broadway.

The competition was international and had the theme of “Changing Times”, as this year’s festival looks back 100 years to the era before the Great War – a Golden Age.

Of the 386 entries, 260 were shortlisted for final judging and11 were highly commended.

The panel of judges was chaired by Mark Ward, former Head of Art at Cheltenham College, with artist Edward Noott and Claire Spencer, winner of the 2012 John Singer Sargent Prize.

The Local Artist Prize of £500, sponsored by Broadway Parish Council, was won by the popular Winchcombe painter Audrey Hammond with her pastel work ‘Twixt Hawling & Roel’.

Chair of judges Mr Ward said: "This was a delightful morning's judging made all the more interesting by the sheer diversity and very high standard of so much of the work on display."

An exhibition of 200 of the entries, featuring the winners and shortlisted artworks will be on display at the Little Buckland Gallery daily throughout the festival which runs from Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 15.

To book tickets for festival events, visit broadwayartsfestival.com or call the Everyman Theatre Box Office on 01242 691141.