Weston Frizzell - New Prints by Mike Weston and Otis Frizzell

Weston Frizzell is the collaborative identity of artists Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston. 


Art and branding collide again with Weston Frizzell's new series of prints. According to Mike and Otis their new prints represent "the next level of the Weston Frizzell strategic evolution applying a combination of approaches, styles, and ideas to explore the iconography of NZ fine art art and popular culture." Subversive commercialism and the outright audacity of their appropriated subject matter in their latest prints shows the fearlessness that the Weston Frizzell brand has come to signify.

In nine years of working together Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston’s creative partnership has evolved from celebrity artist and his art dealer into a full blown art collaboration.

Described by Artnews as "a high performance art partnership", their Warhol influenced production line methods and an entertainment industry honed promotion and management strategy has taken Weston Frizzell from the street art and pop culture melting pot of Auckland's K Rd into the fine art world. Their output draws heavily on appropriated imagery, style and content presented with satiric and often ironic subtext - Weston Frizzell prints challenge notions of authorship and originality.

Both artists have their roots deep in New Zealand's counterculture . The range of skills and influences they share is diverse and eclectic. The Weston Frizzell partnership equally acknowledges contribution of ideas, craft, celebrity, management, and labour in the production and marketing of shared output of works and in the division of the proceeds.

According to Mike Weston and Otis Frizzell their combined skills and the diversity of influences express an aesthetic that is positioned at the "very high end of the low brow".

We were delighted to receive three new prints, Aotearoa, Aroha and World of Love from Weston Frizzell's latest series this morning.

Tony Ogle Print of Matheson's Bay

We have just listed another great new Tony Ogle print this morning. It is of a homestead overlooking Matheson's Bay - a popular holiday spot just north of Auckland.

New Zealand Contemporary Landscape prints by Hamish Allan

We are noticing an exciting new trend of New Zealand prints being produced both on fine art paper and printed directly onto canvas. (Although it does make it harder to catalogue new artwork though because we don't want to clutter up our galleries with multiple images in different formats. We have therefore decided to catalogue the prints on paper and add the information about canvas availability, price etc to the main image page).

Christchurch contemporary landscape artist Hamish Allan is part of this trend releasing a series of six prints available both on fine art paper and printed directly onto genuine artists' canvas in the same size.

Allan worked as a physiotherapist before working initially as a sculptor before starting painting fulltime in 2002. Hamish writes that his "approach to painting and design is clear - less is more. Keeping imagery clean and simple, use deeply contrasting tones and texture to add natural quality and visual impact. Local stylised landscapes are integrated into blocks of colour and texture and lifted by perspective and detail. The horizon is used with striking effect as a focal point from which the painting emerges. Horizontal and vertical plains are integral and emphasized, drawing the viewer into the work."

Shown is the delightfully named print "Yawning" by Hamish Allan - another print featuring New Zealand's iconic cabbage tree...

Rita Angus' Painting of Cass - Who is the person standing on the railway station platform?

The question of who was the model for the lone figure standing on the platform of Cass railway station in Rita Angus' famous painting may have been finally answered by a recent letter to the editor published in "Your Weekend" Magazine on August 8 2009 in response to an article on the settlement of Cass that was published the previous week.

"I read with great interest your Heartland column on Cass. The man on the station in the painting by Rita Angus is my late father, Percy Harold Morey. He was District Engineer for Railways from 1924 - 1945, in Dunedin, the West Coast and Canterbury. He travelled the lines inspecting washouts and slips, and frequently stayed at the Railway House at Cass. During the 1940s he build a bach that still stands to the right of the gate as you enter the settlement, and I have wonderful memories of exploring the surrounds while staying there during school holidays - Pamela Gray, Rolleston."

Are there any other candidates that have been put forward over the years?

Printmaker Annie Smits Sandano told to boycott prints.co.nz

Auckland contemporary print-maker Annie Sandano is today under pressure from her high st galleries to stop promoting her original prints through www.prints.co.nz

This is the first time we have heard of conventional gallery owners pressuring artists to stop selling their work through companies like New Zealand Fine Prints that primarily sell New Zealand artworks online. Is this something to do with the recession squeezing conventional galleries paying those high st rentals to be in the right suburbs we wonder?

Many conventional New Zealand galleries have superb online stores, lots of artists now sell direct from their own websites and companies like New Zealand Fine Prints, TradeMe and Artfind have helped artists grow their sales enormously over the last ten years.

Times have changed and of course artists should be reaching the largest possible audience for their work using the internet.

We say lets see who can sell the most prints for our artists and we'll continue to focus on our customers rather than our competitors - as we know that's what generates ongoing sales in the long term!

Auckland Painter Steven Sacatos - Art Prints & Canvas Prints

Auckland painter Steven Sacatos has released a series of prints of contemporary Auckland that are printed onto either fine art paper or directly onto genuine artists' canvas. Sacatos says he has spent the last twenty years "doing the starving artist thing" and returned to Auckland in 2006 after spending many years painting in Crete.

Sacatos' prints bring a fresh eye to some of Auckland's favourite places - pictured are Steven's views of a Sunday morning in Ponsonby and of Mt Eden. We are delighted to add Steven's work to the Auckland Prints collection at New Zealand's specialist art print store - we now have just on 90 different prints of Auckland in stock.