Canterbury's award-winning landscape artist Hannah Riden is to show a pivotal exhibition of iconic Banks Peninsula scenes at the Little River Gallery, opening next weekend. Her paintings will include Akaroa Harbour, The Kaitorete Spit, Duvauchelle Bay, The Akaroa Heads, Takamatua Bay, Little Akaloa, Akaroa Wharf, Onawe and The Summit Road.

Riden is a well-known Christchurch artist who in the last year has had major shows and residencies at exclusive venues such as The George Hotel, Pegasus bay Winery, and the Canterbury Club. In 2008 she was named landscape artist of the year at the New Zealand Art Awards in Tauranga, which increased her status and added to her respect as an artist working at the peak of landscape painting in New Zealand.

She has strong connections with the Banks Peninsula through her mother, who lives in Robinson's Bay, and has shown her works on the Peninsula since her first exhibition only 5 years ago.

"The Banks Peninsula is an important place for Cantabrians. In brings to mind childhood holidays and lazy summer weekends. Familiar Peninsula scenes can be seen at their most majestic in this collection of paintings, which aims to capture the atmospheric sunrises, sunsets, and ever-changing light of the Banks Peninsula's horizons".

Riden has a bachelor's degree from Oxford University, a Masters from Edinburgh, and had nearly completed a PhD on molecular biology at Massey in Palmerston North when she decided to change careers and follow the dream of becoming an artist. She began by using her knowledge of botanical art to paint flowers in watercolour, and progressed to landscape painting in oils, deeply inspired by New Zealand's spectacular scenery and magical light, and using her spare time to study art history and advance her technique. Her painting has gone from strength to strength, and she now tutors and illustrates in addition to staging regular solo shows of her work.

The exhibition opens Saturday February 13 at 11am, and runs through till March 11.