Eight artists are providing works for a Hilton Lake Taupo Artist Showcase that will be on display within the extensive hotel from mid-July. They are George Thompson, Suzanne Herschell, Bernadette Parsons, Caroline Kelly, Jie Zhou, Kit Ong, Iwen Yong and Dave Borgioli-Jones. Each artist is providing four or five representative works.

Suzanne Herschell is an artist and poet who has exhibited with the Academy since1973. She has exhibited in national and international group, solo and selectedexhibitions. Her works are in corporate and private collections in New Zealand andoverseas. She is a Fellow of the Academy, exhibited in the Benson & Hedges,Norsewear and Molly Morpeth art competitions, was awarded the Gordon HarrisAward for Innovation in Watercolour 2018 and was a finalist in the Arts GoldAwards 2019.Bernadette Parsons says of her work, “Watercolour is my passion; it has the abilityto showcase my  experiences and emotional response to what I see around me, in particular when painting en plein air. Over the years my aim has been not to challenge the medium but to work in a partnership with it to celebrate its spontaneity, transparency and excitement. I have successfully exhibited overseasand throughout New Zealand; a positive sign that watercolour has retained a strong place in today’s art world from our early NZ topographical painters to now, and something that, through my art, I am trying to encourage.”

Caroline Kelly received First Place in the Edinburgh Premier Art Award in Dunedin with ‘Resonate’, and was a finalist in the Portrait Society of Atlanta competition in 2023. In 2024 she was selected for The International Prize Leonardo Di Vinci, Milan, the WAA Women Art Award at the international Woman’s Essence Show 2024 in Barcelona, and the premier International Prize “Phoenix of the Arts”, Venice.

Waikanae artist George Thompson is renowned for his colourful and energetic paintings of New Zealand people and places. Equally accomplished in watercolour, oils or acrylics and with the ability to paint with skill using various techniques in all of these mediums, he believes in using colour in innovative and bold ways and has developed a unique style of passionate impressionism that is apparent in all his mediums.

Dave Borgioli-Jones describes himself as “a wave artist based in Hamilton, ironically one of this country’s few large cities without a beach.” While his works are created there, the Waikato, Coromandel, Auckland and Taranaki coasts are his popular haunts. “I love the ocean for as many reasons as are there are waves themselves. Each wave has its own personality and my pictures are a portrait of their short-lived expression in nature. I take photos and interpret my favourites with soft pastel.”

Born in Malaysia, Kit Ong started painting and experimenting with different mediums from a young age. He won several art awards at school and his favourite medium soon became watercolour. He enjoys the freedom of expression and the versatility painting with watercolours offers. He migrated to New Zealand in 1988 to further his architecture studies at Victoria University of Wellington. In 2013 he semi-retired from architecture to spend more time painting. Since then, he has combined his love of art and architecture. He captures his subjects of buildings and cityscapes in vivid and atmospheric paintings.

After almost 15 years working as an accountant in the corporate world, Iwen Yong decided to pursue a career in art, as a full-time professional artist based in Greytown in the Wairarapa. His paintings are inspired by the beauty of the New Zealand landscape and the rural lifestyle and evoke a sense of solitude. He works in oils in a ‘painterly realist’ style.