Major artworks unveiled at Otaki College

DONATION: Artist Wallace Trickett, flanked by Otaki College students who helped create five murals, with a painting he has donated to the college depicting four ships that were called Otaki.

Five impressive art murals have been unveiled in Otaki College's main hall.

The murals, which illustrate the link and importance between Otaki College and Scotland's Robert Gordon's College, were created by artist Wallace Trickett and a group of Year 10 students.

He said it was a privilege to see the murals unveiled, and was very happy for the students.

Mr Trickett has also donated a painting, pictured, featuring four ships called Otaki, named by the New Zealand Shipping Company.

"Having a town named four times is quite an achievement."

The five murals celebrate the relationship between Otaki College and Robert Gordon's College, in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Since 1937, a student from Robert Gordon's College, the Otaki Scholar, has travelled to New Zealand and is hosted by the head boy or head girl of Otaki College.

A reciprocal scholarship was established at Otaki College in 2013 called the Sander Scholarship, awarded to an outstanding Otaki College school leader, allowing the scholar to travel to Scotland for two weeks in January after graduation.

A special assembly was held in the college hall on Thursday to unveil the murals.

They depict the college's gate carvings and Te Wharenui carvings, the college shield and Sander logo, the SS Otaki, Captain Archibald Bisset-Smith and Robert Gordon's College Coat of Arms, and Robert Gordon's College "Auld Hoose".

Chris Parkin, a former student who contributed to the mural project, said the murals were excellent and highly appropriate.

He had been so impressed that he pledged an annual scholarship to a promising art student.