Seraphine Pick Art Prints

New in stock at www.prints.co.nz this morning are prints from important contemporary New Zealand painter Seraphine Pick. The artist has said about her art, "My imagery is quite weird anyway, but I wanted to convey an uneasiness." According to one reviewer Pick "has haunted the New Zealand art world with a constantly changing stream of emotionally charged paintings for more than a decade." [TVNZ] Her subjects are often faces, figures or domestic objects, alone or in surprising collage, sometimes fragmented as if strained by memory. (We had trouble catergorising them - in the end we have put Seraphine's prints in the surreal prints gallery.)

Pick was born in Kawakawa, Bay of Islands, Northland and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury in 1988. In 1994 she was the recipient of the Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award, and in 1995 she was the Rita Angus Artist in Residence in Wellington. Her art is held in the majority of public art collections in New Zealand including Te Papa Tongarewa: Museum of New Zealand, McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, Chartwell Trust Collection, Auckland and the Fletcher Challenge Collection.

These are the first two prints to be made of Seraphine Pick's artwork - the paintings that have been reproduced are a 1995 work called "High Rise" and a slighter later work called "Room" (see picture above). Both are extremely high quality prints - both editions have been personally checked and approved by the artist before being released for sale this morning. [Artist Photograph Credit: HB Today].

Barry Ross Smith

Barry Ross Smith (1964 - ) was born in Northland, New Zealand. Barry's mother was a school teacher and his father worked at Affco Freezing works and they lived in a small cottage on his uncle's farm. Barry trained as a sign writer and also worked as a commercial artist overseas for many years. Ross-Smith has now been painting professionally for nearly a decade and prints of his farming series have been among our most popular prints for the last few years. His art has also been acclaimed by critics including a terrific review that called Ross-Smith's paintings "hymns to rural New Zealand ... tellingly observed and cleverly rendered" [NZ Herald].

We are delighted to now have Barry's new series of giclee prints in stock - these extremely high quality prints continue his farming theme but there are also new beach, open edition and limited edition prints of Ross-Smith's work. Pictured are "Weathered" and an intriguing new print of the Queen with moko.

Contemporary Maori artist Steve Hikaiti - new prints

Ngati Po artist Steve Hikaiti draws strength from both the hardships he has endured in his life and his Maori lineage. Steve has raised himself through the adversity he has faced and through his artwork has found a release for his talents. His contemporary Maori art prints display an unrivaled attention to detail and a passion for perfection.

Shown here are two of his new limited edition original prints, Patu and Discovery of Life.

Otago Poster Launch

Today is the official launch of a new poster simply called "Otago". The creators of this poster went on a mission and took thousands of photos that represents for them the real Dunedin as is experienced by students and true Dunedinites. After much deliberation and the consumption of several crates of the local beverage the intrepid photographers narrowed it down to the 275 photos included on the poster. The result is an "Otago" poster that offers a lot to reminisce over and features the "real" Dunedin that scarfies and locals alike experience. Take a close look and you will spot iconic Dunedin features such as a "flat taken" sign, Poppa's Pizza, a clothes rack, Critic, a couch, togas, a recycled shopping trolley, the Mothras, the Dundas Street sign, the Empire, a pie, the Captain Cook Tavern. Below are three close-ups of the poster's detail:

Who is Arty Wright?

Arty Wright is the pseudonym for the artist who is probably New Zealand's most experienced printmaker. With over 50 years experience in the art of screenprinting Arty has collaborated with New Zealand's leading artists including Gordon Walters, Pat Hanly, Michael Smither, Dick Frizzell and Stanley Palmer. Here at New Zealand Fine Prints we are really excited that after all these years Arty has finally decided to put his thoughts and vast experience into producing a unique series of screenprints - the Trademark Series.

Wright tells us "the Trademark series brings to the public at large a glimpse of New Zealand nearly forgotten. The images on this series of prints date back to an era when the designs used on our manufactured goods were drawn by artists with pencil, pen, brush and ink. The artists largely remained anonymous, working either as employees of advertising companies or within the manufacturing company itself." In the spirit of the earlier anonymous artists Arty Wright has chosen to keep his identity secret as he salutes their bygone skills by producing this very special series of limited edition screenprints which are released today. Shown here are two of Arty Wright's new art prints, Salesman Tiki and All Backs.

Bill MacCormick's new giclee print series released today

Popular New Zealand painter Bill MacCormick has been publishing prints of his paintings for over twenty years. Bill's prints are enormously popular - we noticed during TV interviews that one of his prints even decorates the living room of (now ex Prime Minister) Helen Clark's Auckland residence! Bill has just released his first series of large limited edition giclee prints of four of his favourite paintings that have never been available before as prints. The print shown is a view of Berhampore Dairy in Wellington - a recurring theme in Bill's artwork is the emotional power of buildings in the New Zealand landscape that tell of those who have gone before us.

MacCormick's new giclee prints use the latest pigmented inks which offer incredible light fastness: 75 years for unframed prints; and 200 years for prints framed behind UV filtering glass. The images are printed onto beautiful paper made from clear spring water and top quality cotton fibre. It is manufactured to be extremely age resistant which means it is categorised as being suitable for lasting more than 100 years (this is the highest life expectancy category of any paper).