Message from the President

As you no doubt know, this year we presented a joint exhibition, Splash 2017 + Ceramicus, in conjunction with the Wellington Potters Association. Once again, the exhibition attracted over 3,000 visitors - up about 100 on last year - and they were full of praise for the show. Visitors commented on how well the ceramics and the watercolours complemented each other and praised both the quality of the paintings on show and the layout of our
watercolour exhibition. One viewer asked whether the show was going to tour the country.

Another couple from Idaho emailed us when they returned home to tell us how much they enjoyed the exhibition and how they regretted that they did not have longer in Wellington to visit it a second time. We have received many similar comments from overseas visitors in recent years, underlining the fact that our Splash exhibition is of international quality.

Guest artist Richard Bolton was struck by how much the standard had improved since his previous visits to Splash in 2013 and 2015. He felt there was a lot more variety in both subject matter and styles compared to the earlier exhibitions. All this reflects, of course, thequality of the work that you, our members, send us. In particular it was pleasing to see paintings of high quality from artists exhibiting with us for the first time. We hope you will continue to send us work in future.

We would like to thank Gordon Harris for once again sponsoring the awards for Innovation in Watercolour and Best Painting by a Junior Artist. The standard in the junior section was very pleasing, reflecting the effort that Alfred Memelink and Philip Markham have put into mentoring our young artists. The junior artists sold 9 of their 12 paintings! We would also like to thank the French Art Shop for their sponsorship of the Peoples Choice Award. This year we allowed people to vote for up to two paintings but a lot of visitors commented that this was still not enough. This sentiment was shared by the judges regarding the introduction this year of 5
Merit Awards in addition to the Supreme Award. They commented that they could easily have awarded at least another ten.

And of course special thanks are due to all of you who helped with setting the exhibition up, our minders, our demonstrators, and everyone who helped with the pack-up. Putting on an exhibition of this size and quality is a major undertaking and we depend on our team of volunteers to make it happen. Plans are already underway for another joint exhibition with the Wellington Potters Association next year, so we hope youll be
painting with this in mind.

John Toft
President, Watercolour New Zealand Inc.