Almost 100 people turned out for the Hellenic Museum’s award ceremony for their Tales of the Greek migrant: a modern odyssey art competition, on Wednesday night.

Pieces from around 35 competitors, both professional and amateur, were on display, with all paintings depicting various themes of multiculturalism.

Gina Kalabishis won first prize for her work, An Epic of Declaration of a Better Zoi. The piece was a triptych of flowers with a merging of native Australian flowers and European flowers.

The motivation behind the work was multiculturalism Ms Kalabishis, a teacher at Victoria University, said.

Ms Kalabishis is married to an Anglo Australian and has three children and said each painting is a meditation of each of those children, as hybrids of a European mother and an Australian father.

Her husband and three children were there on the night as Ms Kalabishis was awarded first place.

In its first year the competition received a really good response, Director of The Hellenic Foundation for Culture, Vicki Yianoulatos told Neos Kosmos. “We had a really good cross section, the competitors were really diverse.”

The total prize pool was $24,000, donated by the Bank of Cyprus and divided across the three major winners.

The Bank of Cyprus also awarded a special junior prize to a group of young primary school students who entered the competition.

Ms Yianoulatos said this was a great way for two organisations, the Hellenic foundation for culture and the Bank of Cyprus, to engage with the community.