Artist Thein Sine poses with the prize-winning "Dream Tree" elephant at Strand Hotel on November 29.

STRAND Hotel is famous for providing accommodation to well-heeled tourists from around the world, but on Thursday it played host to an altogether different kind of crowd – a herd of 21 brightly coloured elephants and their human admirers.

The occasion was the 2007 Elephantasy Elephant Parade Exhibition, in which local artists were invited by sponsors U Ye Htut Win and River Gallery, located on the ground floor of the hotel, to submit their own creative ideas for decorating 40-centimetre-high wooden elephant sculptures.

Nearly 200 submissions came flooding onto the gallery, from which a panel of judges chose the 21 most promising. These selected artists were each given one of the elephant sculptures, on whose blank surface they were free to let their creativity run wild.

“It’s a great opportunity for the young artists to show their creativity, technical painting skills, imagination and ingenuity,” said Ms Gill Pattison, the New Zealand-born owner of River Gallery.

She said she was also happy about the increased interest in the event compared with last year, when the first Elephant Parade was exhibited at the same venue.

“We had about 80 design submissions for last year’s parade and this year we had more than double that number,” she said.

Surveying this year's entries, U Ye Htut Win said he was "really delighted to see that the artists have reached a new level of creativity and excellence."

While everyone at the opening ceremony on Thursday seemed to delight in admiring the dazzling array of elephants while sipping cocktails, the highlight of the evening was the announcement of the winning artists.

Three prize winners and two honourable mentions were chosen from among the 21 finalists by a panel of four judges.

The first prize of K1 million went to Thein Sine for his “Dream Tree” elephant, while the K500,000 second prize was claimed by Ye Aung Myat and his “Hi Boss” piece. Dawei Tu Tu earned K330,000 for his third-place “Free Elephant”.

Honourable mentions were awarded to Wai Han Myint and Myo Min Latt, each of whom earned K100,000 for their efforts.

The top prize winner, 24-year-old Thein Sine, said it was his second time designing an elephant for the exhibit.

“Last year my ‘Royal Elephant’ was one of the 20 finalists but I didn’t win a prize so this year I decided to participate again,” he said.

He said he got the idea for this year’s design by studying trees and their branches, and imagining their trunks as the legs of an elephant.

“It took me 20 days to finish the piece,” he said, adding that the work consisted of a combination of carving the branch designs out of the wooden sculpture and then applying paint.

Thein Sine, a student at the State School of Fine Arts in Yangon, said he plans on becoming a professional artist.

“I will use the money from the prize to buy art supplies,” he said.

Myo Min Latt, who earned one of the two honourable mentions for his “Lord of Black Ivory” elephant, said he never expected to win a prize.

“I don’t know whether there is such thing as black ivory in elephants but I like the idea of a black ivory colour and I wanted to use it in the name of my artwork,” he said.

The elephants are for sale at River Gallery for FEC500 apiece except for the winning “Dream Tree” piece, which is priced at FEC700.

Like last year, 20 percent of the proceeds from the sales will be donated to the local arts community.

Last year’s earning were used to donate art books valued at US$1000 to the State School of Fine Arts and University of Culture.