Prisoners at a Northland jail have raised more than $7000 for the Women's Refuge with an art exhibition.

Eighty artworks by offenders at Northland Region Corrections Facility were displayed at the Mairangi Art Centre in Auckland before being auctioned.

The top-selling piece, “Te Aho o Te Rangi Wharepu”, went under the hammer for $1,200 - the same artist also sold a work for a thousand dollars.

Prison Director Dave Pattinson said the prison artists feel privileged to be able to give back to the community through their art.

The annual InsideOut art exhibition, the latest of which was the seventh consecutive display, is the result of an ongoing creative collaboration between Mairangi Arts Centre and the Department of Corrections.

All the works are produced through the ‘Art in Prisons’ programme and represent a blend of paintings and drawings, as well as Māori carvings, produced in the whakairo workshop at NRCF.