REKA NORMANReka takes her hobbies seriously and to end her high school year with a 95% pass rate for her final International Cambridge Art Exam is a notable demonstration of this.
Self-portrait
I started drawing and painting when I was 12 years old and trained under an artist in Malaysia where many materials such as oil paints and acrylics are in short supply. I was only taught how to use pencil, watercolour and oil pastels.
GRAPHIC DETAILMy interest in art began at school, and I have practiced it in one form or another ever since. Although I enjoyed art at school and was competent even at that stage with pencil drawing, I developed a genuine love of photography in my early teens that I still have. Even then I approached my photography as an artist, in that I photographed subject matter in my own way and which had meaning for me.
Alan doesn’t go out of his way to break the rules he just does it as a matter of course. That’s the way he is. A fabrication engineer by profession and a full-blooded biker at heart Alan has another side to his character – he is an avid watercolourist. No one taught Alan how to paint; he just picked up a brush and did it. No doubt his technical and engineering grounding guided his hand and enabled his approach but then, with his chosen subject being motorcycles, this was, quite fortunate.
There are paintings all over the place when entering a very cluttered Tahuna Studios in Nelson. Some are complete, overs still in that moment of creation. New and old it is an eclectic mix. Added to this are posters, surfboards, skateboards, and all manner of tools.
Adam’s work has taken on a life of its own. It is more than simply ethereal, it is otherworldly. His fish swim in from somewhere we haven’t seen, a parallel dimension perhaps. Steel warriors stand vigilant, swords readied, steel angels look on, observing. Of course it is all fantasy such creatures simply don’t exist, not on this earth at any rate, do they?
Ben Timmins paints with oils on wooden panels. He says the painting process and materials used are deliberately employed to engage the viewer on many experiential levels. There is an underlying resonance throughout these paintings, nature as a subject matter is painted upon nature itself, the wood grain is integrated into the compositions with both paint and subject.
Born in Napier, Alan has always been interested in art from a young age. “I attended weekend art classes at primary school. I took a deep interest in fine arts, took it through high school and had enrolled to do art at Polytech before deciding to put my passion aside for work to support a family. While I was working, I did sketching in my spare time. I also taught myself a lot through studying art books and online video tutorials of different artists’ techniques.
A PROLIFIC TALENTOf course, there is a harsher reality Charles’ work, particularly in his interpretations of aeroplanes and ships from both World Wars and which have proved immensely popular to collectors of this genre.
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