Fine show by arts graduates | Manawatu-Wanganui News | Local News in Manawatu-Wanganui

Mysterious liquids flow through clear plastic tubes, coil around branches and empty into bags in the work of graduating Whanganui UCOL fine arts student Bridget McArthur.

She's one of 13 Bachelor of Fine Arts graduates with a show in the top storey of the Quay School of the Arts buildings in Wanganui's Taupo Quay.

A registered nurse with more than 30 years' experience, McArthur's art revolves around health but it is the health of the whole planet.

Her work Let me care for you was a finalist in the Pattillo Scholarship and is one of those on show in 3 Ladders.

It's largely made out of the kind of waste produced in hospitals in huge quantities.

She wanted to make something beautiful, exciting and new from that waste, and said using recycled materials linked with her drive to make work that spoke of nurturing, repairing and reconstructing nature.

Her fellow students had other preoccupations. Rob Walker's work is a small room full of expressive self portraits and Rena Pearson's big colourful paintings are taken from topographical maps of places she has lived or visited.

3 Ladders opened with two other shows in the Whanganui UCOL atrium on Saturday night.

The others were a third-year fine arts show called Sideways Here We Come and the Diploma in Glass Design and Production graduation show Third and Foremost. The atrium was packed with about 200 students, tutors, friends, families, admirers and art collectors for the launches.

Sarah Williams was honoured as the top student among the fine arts graduates, while Tina Shilbock got acclaim for being the most supportive and Linda Satchwell won the Doyle Glass Prize.

The guest speaker was Anne Pattillo, the Wellington consultant who has been donating the annual Pattillo Scholarship.

She told students to remember the people who loved and supported them on that night and into the future.

To an artist art wasn't a luxury or an optional extra, she said.

"It's the essence of human life. You need that fabric of love around you to create that work that you do. You create, not in a vacuum, but with others."

Whanganui UCOL principal Julia Pedley said the art school was world class, without peer in the New Zealand art education sector. She outlined the school's achievements of 2011:

•Lorraine Webb was named an iconic teacher

•Brit Bunkley won Sculpture Wanganui 2011

•Bridget McArthur got the top award in a show of past and present students' work

•Bonnie Wroe won the Pattillo Scholarship

The three shows are on until November 19. 3 Ladders and Sideways Here We Come are upstairs at Whanganui UCOL and Third and Foremost is in the Federal Gallery.