It was my honour to judge the print section of the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards (NZPPA) at the Waikato Society of Arts in Hamilton in February 2025, an exhibition of excellence in the fields of painting and printmaking. An honour, but also a gut twister, days and nights of deliberation.

As I said while waving the microphone round like an ice cream on the stage, do not be disheartened if you were not selected this time. Judging is subjective, and a different judge would select and award prizes differently.

Competition for inclusion in this show was so tight that one print didn’t meet the cut because there was a fingerprint showing. I know it’s petty, and you could argue it’s the mark of the maker, but it came down to that. We need to be vigilant with standards, even more so now as social media allows unjuried visibility of self-proclaimed artists.

Some recommendations for entering awards from a judge’s viewpoint

Choose your very best work that meets all the award’s criteria. (Some works were not eligible for selection as they were outside the specified dimensions.)

Selection from digital images is common practice now, but it compromises your work. Take a quality photo with good lighting and a plain background that accurately represents your art.

Consider what work you are putting in. It is interesting for a selector to see innovation, processes that push the boundaries of print. In the case of this exhibition, you all seemed to know this as there was a vast variety of works that hit the trifecta of skilled printmaking working hand in hand with subject matter and the artists’ message.

Title your work. It’s confusing if there is more than one Untitled on a list when blind judging, and a title gives such a wonderful invitation to enter the work.

Step out of yourself and become the ‘viewer’, critique if your work conveys the meaning you intended. (If you find this tricky ask for feedback from a trusted person.) Also, there is a word limit on artist’s statements for reason. Your voice will be more powerful if your statement concisely captures your theme, emotion, process, idea etc.

Print Council Influence

The Print Council has invigorated printmaking throughout Aotearoa. Printmakers are now both honouring print conventions/traditions and applying them in unique ways that is relevant to our time and place. Previous Print Council challenges to display prints outside the frame is now changing the face of conventional exhibitions, and curators are responding accordingly.

In writing this, I have just realised two of the three works I selected for Honourable Mentions (Celia Walker p.52 and Elliot Collins p.56 in the catalogue) and the Ruth Davy Merit prize (Sybille Schlumbom p.72) were not in a frame but suspended in alternative ways.

Print Council sponsorship of the Printmaking Award firmly stands our ground that we are not second best to painting. I sincerely hope that this support will continue to recognise, reward and encourage future inky pursuits.

The winner of the Major Print Prize was Ben Reid / Sing Together 2024, multi-plate woodcut (p.50 in the catalogue).


To view the catalogue and find out more about the winners and finalists of NZPPA 2025, go to https://wsa.org.nz/product/2025-nzppa/ or click on the button below: