Island series a breath of fresh air

A decade ago artist Barry Ross Smith created a series of artworks that were hailed by critics as "hymns to rural New Zealand",  there followed a collection of top selling prints that sold to city and country folk alike.  His finely realised portraits of NZ farming life were informed by his deep personal roots in the country, at the time he lived and had his studio on a farm - this was authentic rural NZ art that stood up to the scrutiny of those with an expert eye for farming matters.

It is always hard for an artist to move on to a new phase of work.  Not just the difficulty of finding a new theme to explore at a professional level, but also the buyers of their work want them to keep ploughing the same field long after the artist themselves may have moved on in their work (Bill Hammond and his bird paintings for instance, he's over birds but these are the ones that collectors demand).

Barry has successfully and cleverly moved to a new and innovative series of paintings that we really like.  The New Zealand landscape imagined as a series of islands.

Waterfront Villas -"Islands" series print by Barry Ross Smith

The story of Aotearoa/NZ is the story of island isolation, of huddling together on rocky outcrops in the Pacific Ocean.  There is an element of the slightly surreal about Barry Ross Smith's island series which lifts them out of being just another photo realistic painting that is essentially just a reproduction of the NZ countryside, an honest and competent depiction of a scene but lacking the mystery of the very best kiwi landscape artists such as Grahame Sydney (who as an aside recently gave us the glorious phrase in response to the work of another artist, "Well, x is a good amateur, but a poor professional"! ).

These prints are refreshingly different and look great on the wall hung as a series (coherent but not to matchy matchy).  They are also well-priced, at just under $60 per print.  These new prints are saying something more than just what you see, raising interesting questions about the evolving kiwi identity as the 21st century advances.  And although this series is a significant advance on what has become very tired nostalgic white bread kiwiana, it's similar in spirit to that which energised the popularity of kiwiana art for NZ homes over the last 20 years,  a low key but deeply felt appreciation of our unique NZness, with a light touch, almost but not quite an in-joke (perhaps the wry smile) that only Aotearovians fully appreciate.

And as the person who catalogues for sale every new NZ art print I would like to add that our unique identity does not have to just revolve around endemic birds!   Of the last 20 new prints that have come out from NZ publishers and artists 16 of them featured birds, there are fast becoming as cliche as the nikau palm and cabbage tree of the mid 90s.   We have predicted the next trend will be fish. And then insects.  Even if we are wrong it must be time to move on from things avian...

Painter Barry Ross Smith Quits Prints to Focus on Painting

Popular NZ painter Barry Ross Smith has announced he is no longer going to be making prints available of his artwork. After a very successful series of farming prints such as Lot 18 published in conjunction with Image Vault Barry and his wife Leanne began producing their own series of high quality archival standard giclee prints based on Barry's most popular paintings including the controversial "Queen with Moko" two years ago.

Barry says "We believed that there was a market for high quality reproductions that would last and give rich colour clarity. With my participation in a MFA [Master of Fine Arts] degree program, helping with the children and the production and proofing of new prints etc I have found it increasingly difficult to find the time to devote to my main inspiration which is the painting of original artworks." Ross Smith adds that finalising  the printing of reproductions will "allow time for me to go forward in my career and dedicate more time to the painting and production of original artworks."

Here at NZ Fine Prints we have made sure that we have excellent stocks of most of the Barry Ross Smith print series on hand - enough to last the next few months - but we will eventually sell out of these titles and they won't be re-printed once these editions have sold out.

Queen with Moko Print

One of our prints - Queen with Moko by Barry Ross Smith has hit the national news via the Manawatu Standard's article that has been picked up Stuff.co.nz - the main news website for Fairfax media. Over 60 comments on the article already - mostly positive so far.  We'll see where this goes...

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.

Canvas Prints vs Canvas Transfer

Prints on canvas by New Zealand artists have finally started being published. The prints we have in stock in our new canvas prints gallery are different from earlier "canvas transfer" prints because they are printed directly onto a high grade artist's canvas using pigment inks.

With canvas transfer the print was bonded onto a canvas like backing using a process rather like laminating. This canvas is usually stretched onto a frame in a way that looks like the picture wraps around the edges. We have always offered eg Grahame Sydney, Diana Adams and Barry Ross Smith prints as canvas transfers ready to hang on the wall out of the box. But we are now looking forward to more true canvas art prints being published as the technology improves and customers start to appreciate the step up in quality that comes with printing directly onto canvas.