Lorraine Webb's artwork is well known in Whanganui and she has tutored many an aspiring fine artist at UCOL.
Her sister Jen works with words rather than paint and the two have combined their work for an exhibition The Possibilities of Water at Edith Gallery.
Jen is Distinguished Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Canberra, Australia and she has contributed a series of poems to sit alongside her sister's water-themed paintings.
Lorraine says key modes of such collaborations are usually ekphrastic: poems that describe visual art, paintings that describe poems.
"Neither of us is particularly interested in this approach," says Lorraine.
"We have, rather, aimed to work in an allegorical relationship."
Lorraine says the paintings and poems converse with each other, but do not illustrate each other.
Her paintings in the exhibition are encaustic on canvas.
Also known as hot wax painting, the technique involves using heated beeswax to which coloured pigments are added.
The liquid or paste is then applied to the surface.
The result is liquid and layered looking images that give impressions of water with objects sitting beneath and on the surface.
Jen's poems take the viewer in to the water with words ...
Deeper and deeper, the lead seeks out the depths.
We are taking soundings, we are calling the deep, we will not run aground.
The Possibilities of Water is open for viewing at Edith Gallery, 24 Taupo Quay, 10am-3pm weekdays.