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As a registered nurse of more than 30 years’ experience, Whanganui UCOL’s Quay School of the Arts student Bridget McArthur’s artistic expression was always going to be related to health.

As a registered nurse of more than 30 years’ experience, Whanganui UCOL’s Quay School of the Arts student Bridget McArthur’s artistic expression was always going to be related to health.

Bridget’s creative concern, however, goes beyond human health, and refers to the welfare of the whole planet.

Her colourful installation, Let me care for you is part of the Bachelor of Fine Arts graduation exhibition that opens on November 5 at Whanganui UCOL’s Atrium.

She will be joined by fellow graduands from the four year degree programme in an exhibition titled 3 Ladders, as part of Whanganui UCOL’s month long, annual arts festival Artrageous.

Bridget says, “My work attempts to address the issue of the planet’s welfare and is mostly constructed from recycled materials.”

She says as a theatre nurse she witnessed a large amount of waste produced. She wanted to make something beautiful, exciting and new from that waste.

“The idea of using recycled material links with my drive to make work that speaks of nurturing, repairing and reconstructing nature.”

“Art has always been a passion and having recently moved from Auckland to Whanganui, I was able to follow my dream of becoming an artist.”

As a mature student, Bridget is able to draw on her life experiences and says she is largely inspired by nature, especially the Whanganui River and the beaches.

Bridget’s work Let me care for you was a finalist in this year’s pattillo art scholarship – New Zealand’s richest student art prize.

The Graduate exhibition opening on Saturday 5 November will be addressed by the pattillo art scholarship founder, Ann Pattillo.

The opening will start in the Atrium off Rutland Street then precede to a Taster Exhibition in the Edith Gallery and especially prepared gallery spaces in the first floors of the Quay School of the Arts.

3 Ladders showcases a diverse range of creative talent including glass student Karen McIntyre who, in her glass installation, discusses the philosophical concept of living ‘human time’, and Kate Walker explores not finding comfort where you expect it, in her current body of work.

Painter Sara Cawston deals with colour, whilst Rob Davies shows a range of expressive self-portraits. Cheleigh Dunkerton lets us have a play as she transforms the boundaries of everyday materials. Mereana Pari presents complicated colour work while Rena Pearson paints vividly from topographical maps from places she has lived or visited.

Rebekah Tomlinson asks us to remember our childhood while Sarah Williams, literally draws from the everyday in all its banality and beauty from peeling an orange to picking up a coffee cup. Printmaker Tina Shilvock’s work developed around the common threads that run through our shared culture and environments and Sarah Pearson’s delicate paper forms look at the temporary nature of the human form.

When: 3 Ladders opens Saturday 5 November at 5.30pm.

Viewing from Sunday 6 November, (Monday – Friday, 11.00am – 4.00pm) and weekends 10.00am – 2.00pm. Closes Saturday 19 November.

Where: Edith Gallery, C2.01 and C2.11 at the Whanganui UCOL campus.