Red flamingoes fly off with Sculpture prize

A flock of red flamingoes, Chinese artist Wendi Zhang's Mi No 5, has flown off with the prize as most popular artwork on the closing weekend of Sculpture by the Sea.

The17 red flamingoes that have strutted along the Cottesloe beachfront over the past two weeks have been a big hit on social media and with the public who voted in the $2500 EY People's Choice Prize.

Zhang is the third Chinese artist in the past four years to win the award with a bright-red artwork after Chen Wenling's Red Memory Smile and Wang Shugang's circle of squatting men, Meeting 1.

She said she was very grateful for the acknowledgment and thankful for the opportunity to meet and learn from other sculptors at such a fabulous location to display her work.

"It is because of this beautiful beach, my work could represent its meaning properly - the harmony of ecology, art and nature, which is the transcendent realm we are yearning for," she said.

Sculpture by the Sea director David Handley said the 2015 exhibition, which ends tomorrow, had been one to remember.

"Wonderful and inspiring sculptures, a cyclone that almost appeared, a beach that almost disappeared and hundreds of thousands of people who joined us for the exhibition," he said.

The Kids' Choice Prize, voted for by children who visited the exhibition, went to Perth artist Stormie Mills for his giant pink bunny.

Prize sponsor and Sydney screen producer Rebel Penfold-Russell said the event brought out the child in everyone.

"The reason for us to create the Kids' Prize was to encourage kids to engage with artworks and play around them instead of being forced into galleries and told to behave and just look," she said.

The 11th annual exhibition at Cottesloe features 69 sculptures by artists from across the world. It will officially close tomorrow afternoon.