What’s the Difference Between ‘Abstract’ & ‘Stylised’ painting?

There are countless art styles worldwide, each bringing unique and eye-catching work to life. Art styles can evoke several emotions, from Art Deco prints to detailed portraits. With numerous established art styles, they can be hard to differentiate. In this blog post, we discuss abstract and stylised paintings, the key elements of each style, and how they differ.

 

What Are Abstract Paintings?

We stock a vast range of abstract art prints, one of our favourite visual styles. Abstract art came from a place of change. As society grew, so too did the desire for new art. In turn, this unique art style was highly conceptual, no longer focusing on replicating scenes from the real world or creating recognisable motifs. This new style used shape, colour, and line to create striking imagery. The style departs from the real world, creating imagery that does not resemble reality. Abstract art can sit at different levels of familiarity. Some paintings are extremely obvious in what ideas they represent. Others are less easily understood and can evoke thought and emotion in a viewer. Abstract art can help us see the world from a new perspective, comparable to cubism or surrealism. 

 The earliest works of abstract art are geometric and linear. These works have appeared in several mediums, including pottery, fabrics, and rocks. Many believe that abstract shapes and symbols represent ideas; however, they are still easily admired without understanding the meaning. Abstract art allows us to create meaning and choose how we interpret a work of art. The critical difference with abstract art is that the aim is not to create an object or reflection of reality but to create feeling and emotion. 

Broadway by Mark Tobey

One of our favourites, Broadway (1936) by Mark Tobey, is made up of white lines on top of a dark blue and red canvas. The white lines are nothing more than squares and shapes, but they work to create an abstract cityscape. The piece immediately evokes the feel of a loud, bright, bustling city street. There is not a single building, taxi, or storefront painted. 

However, with only a smattering of white lines, our brains can make sense of the painting and recognise the abstract elements of a city, further encouraged by the busy feeling of the artwork.

What Are Stylised Paintings?

Stylised paintings use more recognisable imagery to create bold and unique art pieces. The art becomes ‘stylised’ by using colour and shape distortion to disconnect the image from reality. Stylised art allows artists more freedom to experiment with shapes and colours to create beautiful imagery. Stylised art aims to depict a subject effectively but with a unique style that takes away from realism. Stylised paintings sit as a stepping stone, sitting between realism and abstract. There is a clear representation of an object but no need for accuracy. Instead, there is the freedom to be creative and paint beautiful, bold pieces. Some stylised works are exaggerated and focus on the essential details to emphasise and exaggerate the overall look of the painting. Other stylised artworks are more minimal, aiming to portray an object accurately but with as little detail as possible. 

Our Milford Sound vintage travel poster is an excellent example of a beautiful, stylised painting. The

piece includes an obvious depiction of a mountain—the famous Mitre Peak—made of blue, red, and yellow tones. The colour pallet creates the subject clearly, but with hardly any fine detail, just colour mixed beautifully to create a stylised interpretation.

 

How do the Styles Compare?

They both give artists the power to sway from reality and focus on creating unique works that use the technique to tell a story. Abstract art leaves much more to the viewer’s interpretation, with no ties to realism. Stylised artwork incorporates unique, stylistic elements from the artist. The subject is recognisable, but the artist has more freedom to experiment and put their unique twist on reality. Abstract, on the other hand, eliminates the reality aspect. Artists have the freedom to combine visual elements to produce awe-inspiring artwork. Colours and shapes are combined to create striking imagery. You don’t need to understand what is happening in the piece to admire abstract art—all you need is a pair of eyes. The art will evoke an emotional reaction.

 

Find the Perfect Piece of Wall Art for Your Home

NZ Fine Prints offers an extensive range of art prints from artists worldwide. From famous abstract paintings to stylised Kiwiana imagery, we have the perfect wall art for your home. Explore our full range of art prints online today.

Slow Death of Kiwiana?

In this article we talk to NZ designer Shann Whitaker of Tantrum Design who has recently declared he thinks the popularity of Kiwiana is just another trend, and a perhaps a fad that is on the verge of dying.  

Whitaker argues that Kiwiana has not just been a relabelling of what is unique to or easily identified as being from New Zealand as "Kiwiana" but a trend that has perhaps done its day. It's an interesting contribution to the debate around whether kiwiana is just another trend that has now possibly been done to death or have we just taken to calling cultural products from NZ that were always there and will always be for sale (tikis for example) with the previously kitschy term Kiwiana?

NZ Designer Shann Whitaker

Kiwiana "Bloated and Swollen", needs "A Cleanout"

Whitaker says "Like every good idea and trend, the good times must come to an end."  Although Kiwiana hasn't yet actually died "It has just become rather bloated and swollen, to a point that every shop, chemist, two dollar store or fair stall has something Kiwiana in it."

Whitaker says that the most important factor in the decline of Kiwiana is time, "it has probably been a good decade since the scene really took off". He adds "Sure, you can still find great creative NZ themed gifts but lets face it, New Zealand has a limited amount of iconic imagery, flora and fauna. There are only so many different ways you can dress up a Fantail before you start going a little crazy. I used to joke that we needed to find some kind of new bird or mammal just so we had something new to design. These same icons have been designed to death now and the regurgitating of the same material is becoming stale."

According to Whitaker Kiwiana needs a "clean out".   He says the "sheer number of creatives trying to design in a small market has become over populated. Copycats, the faux designers ripping off new ideas and selling them at low low prices to cheap stores do not help the market."

Kiwi design is more important than kiwi made to Whitaker

Although he is talking about giftware and design store products more than kiwiana art specifically Whitaker makes an interesting distinction between kiwi made and kiwi designed but manufactured overseas and calls for the buying public to "embrace creatives for their ideas not just their manufacturing abilities."

"I was 100% NZ Made for six years", he says, "but as my ideas changed and I got more adventurous with my products I realised that I was restricted by price. I feel that as New Zealanders our strengths are in our ideas and creativeness. We cannot compete with the low wages and long hours that make China and India  powerhouses of the manufacturing world."

In NZ Fine Prints part of the broader market for cultural products from New Zealand we still believe that the rebranding of the work of NZ artists as kiwiana art is mostly a blurring of the definition of "fine art" from New Zealand and popular or commercial art in the public's perception.  However Shann's assertion that the days of derivative - or less charitably copycat - "kiwiana" style designs being sold everywhere on everything is coming to an end (even if the name still sticks to art that has nothing in common with buzzy bees and four square man beyond being created in the same country) does seem to be common sense too.  What we would be concerned about would be if Kiwiana was both a trend and a blurring of definitions that had the result of quality work by NZ's best artists being dismissed in the near future as merely Kiwiana that is no longer fashionable due to the factors Shann has identified.

Is kiwiana just a trend? If so is "Kiwiana" a trend that is dying? Please leave a comment below.

Lester Hall prints now in stock

Lester Hall is one of NZ's most politically aware artists. Hall first systematically investigated the themes of Maori/Pakeha relations and history in his early 2000s "Hoaries and Whities" series but it is his development of these ideas into his "Aoteroaland" series that has seen him become one of the highest profile contemporary printmakers in NZ.

In Aotearoaland, Lester says, "a "third space" is created, outside the dogmatic stupidity and hypocrisy of exclusively Maori or Euro frameworks and a blended outcome is searched for. Not sameness but unity and identity. I believe the idea of separate development is outrageous controlling of outcome for individuals who otherwise would make fine lives for themselves in a culturally hybrid frame of reference." Hall thinks that we have been slack in mining our own countries rich historical past for heros and and legends, chiefs such as Hongi Hika who was a "master strategist, a highly intelligent man, a brilliant commander, a desperado…it's exciting real Boys Own adventure stuff. But were we told stories about him? No, we were told stories about Geronimo and General Custer" (interview with the Northern Advocate Feb 2010).

He has been accurately described by Northland's Stingray magazine as an "artist provocateur", they quoted Hall saying "The old myths of popular New Zealand history need to be aired and flung out as silly and not realistic". He says "The artworks are my map into my subconscious and back out through the historical narrative that lies just beneath the veneer of our daily life."

Lester Hall's prints have caused controversy over the use of Maori images (similar to the debate about Goldie paintings being reproduced as prints - see our previous article on the ongoing Goldie prints controversy) and exhibitions have attracted letters of complaint and accusations of being offensive. However Hall's art is not always shocking or provocative, as he says he "sometimes paints tough ideas in pretty colours in an attempt to bring more and more Pakeha Kiwis especially, to the scary conversation of who we all are." Hall's kiwiana prints like the popular "Miss Kiwiana" are much lighter in tone than some of his more radical artworks.

Hall paints and makes prints from his house/studio in the Far North, a large corrugated iron shed with an apartment like interior that has featured in interior design magazines.

Landscape to Kiwiana - 50 years of print publishing in NZ

New Zealand Fine Prints have been at the forefront of shaping NZ's visual culture since the 1960s.  Fifty years ago buying prints in NZ meant choosing between imported images of famous paintings like Rembrandt's "Night Watch" or framing one of the occasional colour supplements from the NZ Weekly News.

Prints by early NZ landscape painter Charles Heaphy were popular
decoration in the mid twentieth century

In the 1960s the growing appreciation of New Zealand art led to both the opening of dealer galleries and a desire to look back at how painting had developed in New Zealand. Writers such as Tony Murray-Olliver were beginning to compile biographies of significant early NZ artists and the reproduction of prints of the most important paintings he unearthed were issued by the Alexander Turnbull Library - beginning with the so-called "Queen's Pictures" (a set was given to the Queen), the Heaphy views of Wellington and Nelson Haven.  Avon Fine Prints began re-issuing limited edition prints of the early views of settlement by artists like Barraud, O'Brien and Earle that had been used by the colonising companies to advertise to new settlers the delights of new towns such as Dunedin and Christchurch. 

New Zealanders began to decorate with landscape art that deepened their affinity with the land in which we lived and enjoyed looking back to our comparatively recent pictorial history with historical prints that showed the early days of settlement.  The 1980s saw art publishing companies such as the Capper Press produce the first series of avowedly contemporary prints in consultation with the new breed of gallery curators, prints by artists such as Gordon Walters, Peter Siddell and Gretchen Albrecht sitting alongside the early NZ landscapes in their catalogues. For the first time commercial galleries such as the Peter Small Gallery (who were printing all those wizard infested Lord of the Rings posters under license) began producing contemporary decorative prints by NZ artists - the Jane Evans series proving particularly popular.

C.F. Goldie published prints
of "A Good Joke" in the 1920s
but it wasn't until the 1970s that
self-publishing by NZ artists
took off.

It was in the late 70s and early 80s that artists for the first time began self-publishing reproduction prints of their work (C.F. Goldie's 1920s hand-signed prints of A Good Joke shown here being a notable exception). Grahame Sydney,  Brent Wong and Peter Beadle sold thousands of prints and NZ Fine Prints began distributing prints on behalf of these artists as well as our own published prints (under the Avon Fine Prints and Capper Press monikers).  Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the Hocken Library and Christchurch Art Gallery joined the Alexander Turnbull Library in publishing several series of prints of artworks from their collections alongside the exhibition posters that were for many years often the only examples of an artist's work available as a print.  (It was around this time that the Christchurch Art Gallery sold over 3000 copies of a Colin McCahon retrospective exhibition poster showing "Tomorrow will be the Same" despite its shocking pink border).

NZ Fine Prints' stockroom in the mid 1990s

By the late 1990s NZ Fine Prints were receiving artist submissions of new work on a weekly basis, by the early 2000s changes in printing technology and the distribution of framed pictures with NZ scenes by contract artists began changing the market again as picture framers and galleries began losing market share to the new breed of design stores and furniture outlets - and to the internet as Prints.co.nz meant print buyers could easily buy their art prints directly from New Zealand Fine Prints and have them delivered wherever they were in NZ or around the world.

Kiwiana art from Matt Guild

The last few years has seen an increase in the supply of prints at both the top end (handmade editions by artists such as Tony Ogle and Dick Frizzell and large high quality prints on canvas) and in the swift rise of a new category of "kiwiana" - prints as pictures rather than "art", even comprising simple typography and kiwi images that closely imitated current artistic trends and with a fashion forward seasonal popularity that is a long way from enduring fine art but which fits with a trend to more frequent updates to contemporary interior design.  Artists such as Matt Guild whose work "Hamilton Beach Milkshake" is shown at left proudly call themselves  "kiwiana artists" without the negative associations that this term might once have had (see our previous article here on the changing meaning of kiwiana).

The story of the next decade of art publishing in NZ will be about changes in printing technology increasing the supply of available images, the re-sale of quality works by contemporary printmakers at increasingly higher prices and a more urban feel to contemporary artworks - prints that will still sit alongside the NZ landscapes empty of people that have been in vogue for the last half century.

Kiwiana art features at NY's new Kiwiana Restaurant

Chef Mark Simmons

The kitchen at NY's new Kiwiana restaurant

Recently New Zealand chef Mark Simmons chose kiwiana art specialists NZ Fine Prints to supply the artworks for New York's brand new Kiwiana Restaurant.

Prints chosen to decorate his new restaurant that showcases NZ's cuisine and culture had to be delivered to New York within a tight timeframe before Kiwiana's opening night in August 2011.

Born and raised on a sheep farm in New Zealand Simmons was amusingly described in a recent US interview as "the former Top Chef contender with the dreamy New Zealand accent".  After a stint at NY restaurant's Public and then a role as executive chef at Melt Simmons has decided to open the first kiwi restaurant in New York - "Kiwiana".

According to Simmons "Kiwiana is about combining the rich cultural and culinary traditions of New Zealand in a friendly and welcoming space". The cuisine at Kiwiana is inspired by native New Zealand ingredients such as the horopito pepper and our national dishes such as hokey-pokey ice cream. The food incorporates elements and techniques  Simmons acquired during his travels, starting in Australia, through Japan and on to the United States. Kiwiana features a variety of lamb and seafood dishes with a New Zealand twist - such as as manuka and marmite braised baby back ribs with squash purée , Milo-rubbed venison loin with potato cake, baby leeks and cola-braised cherries and raspberry lamington with whipped coconut cream and hokey pokey brittle.

Lamingtons (Image courtesy of Kiwiana)

So next time you are in New York and want to take your American friends out for a kiwi style feast of superb NZ cuisine check out Kiwiana - 847 Union St, Brooklyn, NY 11215, their website is http://www.kiwiana-nyc.com.

And for the record Simmons chose the following kiwiana prints from our kiwiana art collection - a large vintage style canvas by Paul Ny called "Kiwis can Fly", "Highway 80" by Grant McSherry and "Four Square Store at Sunrise" by Bill MacCormick.

Prints by Greg Straight get NZ Fine Prints recommendation

NZ Printmaker Greg Straight

Pop Art Tiki by Greg Straight [Edition of 100]

Recently contemporary New Zealand printmaker Greg Straight (pictured left) was profiled by Kiaora magazine's Matt Philp (Straight's "Neon Tiki" graced the cover of the inflight magazine for Air New Zealand in June 2011). “Art and design used to be very clearly distinct but these days there’s far more of a crossover. I think my generation is more open to that. But fine art takes itself too seriously sometimes, which is why I like pop art. I love the idea of taking objects from everyday life and putting them in a gallery.”

Greg is at the forefront of the movement that is finally adding a contemporary urban sensibility into the visual arts in New Zealand.  “It’s a real challenge with kiwiana though, because everyone has had a stab at it,” he told Kiaora's Philp “You have to find ways to put a new twist on it and keep it contemporary. That might mean breaking the thing down into geometric shapes and using bold colours." 

Straight graduated from the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts majoring in print making.  A fine art printmaker who also works as a T-shirt graphic designer for streetwear brands such as Huffer and Federation Straight's artwork is an exciting melding of high art with NZ pop culture.

We are cataloguing Straight's first series of prints including "Pop Art Tiki" shown here and Greg Straight's prints wholeheartedly get NZ Fine Prints' "buy" recommendation for astute collectors building their hoard of contemporary NZ editions.

Two New Editions from Tony Ogle

Tony Ogle Print Hammock and Bach

NZ Printmaker Tony Ogle

Reputedly "Cathy's place at Bethell's [Beach]" "Hammock and Bach" was Tony Ogle's last print of 2010.  As with all of Ogle's fine art prints "Hammock and Bach" began as a detailed painting on board from which each individual colour is then hand separated. These separations became the stencils on the screens through which each colour is printed (some Ogle prints have up to 25 individually printed colours). The printing process involves a careful alignment and registration and constant checking for quality problems. The colours of all Tony's prints are hand-mixed and give the image a very real handmade feel and quality.  Hammock and Bach is an edition of 200. (NB for readers outside of NZ "bach" is the coloquial New Zealand expression for a holiday home).

Caravan Window, Tony's first print in 2011

Tony's first print of 2011 is "Caravan Window".  Here the kiwiana style beachside scene is cleverly framed by an oval window that echoes the shape of the caravan windows in the foreground.  A tyre rope swing hangs from the branches of the pohutukawa tree.  Edition of 180, image dimensions 450 x 180mm.   Tony subscribes to single edition productions only, he says "a true Limited Edition Fine Art Print [should be] limited to one edition, each being numbered and signed individually by the Artist. Once the Edition has sold out it should not be repeated otherwise the value of the works is compromised."   In the long term this is what gives the artworks value over time.

New signage for our Christchurch Gallery by kiwiana artist JK

Christchurch painter Jason Kelly is at the vanguard of the kiwiana art movement that is sweeping galleries and design stores across New Zealand. But we also knew that he had initially trained as a commercial sign writer - so who better to design and create the new signs for our gallery in Christchurch following the earthquake in September 2010 than JK?

We got progress emails from him saying things like "Are you happy for me to freestyle a little with timber choices and a have slightly different shape?" and then a few days later "I found some cool pieces of wood and metal work yesterday…I hope you won't mind".  We began to wonder if Jason was heading off on one of his quirky tangents but he assured us we would appreciate the recycled bed head pieces in the final sign/artwork!

The final design was unveiled this morning at 202 Hereford and we are delighted with our new signage that not only makes it a lot easier to find our store but subtly reminds visitors that although we are NZ's largest online art retailer we have been in the art print business for nearly five decades.

JK's Bike - Kiwiana artist Jason Kelly's Signature Explained

JK Bike Signature

Recently we asked the creator of some of the most popular new prints in the kiwiana art collection at New Zealand Fine Prints about his unusual signature. For Jason Kelly signs his humorous and quirky kiwiana style artworks not with his name but with one of two symbols. As the magnified pictures of his "signature" that accompany this article show JK's signature comprises a symbol that is his initials combined with a bicycle.

So before finding out why this artist used a symbol instead of a signature we first had to find out why a bicycle was so important to JK...

Jason wrote to NZ Art Print News:

"Re: My Bike. I have always ridden a bike from a nippa and had a bit of a love affair with them, always rode to school, first kid to wear a helmet back in the early eighties, it was some Italian hard shelled thing which looked like a cross between a peanut and a German helmet, I was severley grilled by my peers at school, them calling me peanut! Didn't bother me too much though. The love of bikes continued into Triathlon and now days having a small collection of oldies and a love of doing them up including English bikes, such as a BSA & Triumph"

Jason Kelly's "Flaming Bike" logo

We then asked Jason when he first started using the symbol/logo. He told us "The JK Bike is like a brand I suppose, it was modeled on an old Bicycle advertisement, I was never that happy signing my work as it didn't quite do it for me asthetically, so the Bike was born and I now stamp all my Art with it ( Art only) [Jason also works as a professional signwriter]. I always sign my work on the back along with the date and replaced the indelible ink stamp with the signature early on round 2000, there are some early works floating round though that missed the stamp.

The images are my artwork stamp and the "It's Hot" Bike, a bit of a piss take really, but I love flames, must be a bogan in me somewhere!"

We are delighted to report that Jason has just had the JK bike tattooed on his right painting arm four times going from my wrist small to my bicep large with the "It's Hot Flames" style logo coming out of the back wheel. Jason tells us that this was to show his "dedication to the love of what I do, my brand and my love of bikes."

Xmas Gift trends at NZ Fine Prints

Gift Voucher from NZ Fine Prints

Pre-Xmas gift buying is about to start (from the beginning of November) and NZ Fine Prints enters the busiest time of our year. This continues right up until Xmas day now with the last email gift vouchers (see illustration of one of our popular gift vouchers for New Zealand art at left) being purchased on Christmas day itself!  We even get customers buying Christmas gift vouchers after Xmas here in New Zealand (but delivered on time for Xmas via email due to the time difference between NZ and the rest of the world).  It is an exciting time and after 40 years of Xmas's we know how to ensure that all NZ gifts are delivered in perfect condition with on time delivery throughout NZ and overseas.  Art prints ordered as gifts from NZ Fine Prints are always gift-wrapped free of charge and we also enclose your personal or corporate note as well.  In addition to gift orders placed at www.prints.co.nz our phone rings every few minutes for two whole months with Xmas gift orders (unlike most other online NZ stores we welcome enquiries and orders by phone - call us free on 0800 800 ART).

(As a complete aside the contraction of Christmas to "Xmas" as an informal term for Christmas has the following origin - X represents the intial chi of Greek Khristos "Christ" - a tiny Christmas factoid to toss into conversation around the Christmas lunch table).

NZ Gift buying trends for Xmas 2010

Kiwiana Art by Jason Kelly

Kiwiana gifts are going to be very popular New Zealand gifts this Xmas.  Kiwiana art has gone mainstream and absorbed into what used to be distinct "fine art", no longer exclusively kitsch icons of daily life but an artistic celebration of what it means to be a New Zealander.  The perfect inexpensive gift for NZers living overseas is the kiwiana art of Jason Kelly (see JK's print "Tiki Tour" at left) or Matt Guild. Charming, whimsical and decorative work from two painters proud to call themselves "Kiwiana Artists".

Vintage NZ poster art is another big NZ gift trend this Xmas.  Based on classic images from early 20th century NZ designers working for the Government Tourism and Publicity Department or NZ Railways Publicity Department vintage posters work together so well on the wall.  A collection of different images offer differing designs and subjects (such as fly fishing or ski-ing) but provide a consistent vintage New Zealand design theme throughout your home or office.  Retro: We are also seeing the start of a new trend for retro art as well - this nostalgia for the more recent past (1970s and 80s art) will be a big theme for 2011.

We are always delighted to discuss your Xmas gift requirements - whether you need a corporate gift for 200 clients or the perfect antique NZ map for your brother-in-law please call us on 0800 800 ART or contact NZ's art print specialists online at www.prints.co.nz

Jason Kelly's Kiwiana art print series

We have just catalogued for sale the entire first series of art prints from contemporary kiwiana artist Jason Kelly. Trained as a sign-writer Kelly combines kiwiana icons such as jandals, Tip Top icecream and chocolate fish with humourous slogans showcasing the quirks of New Zealand culture. Kelly references the shared culture that kiwis recognise as being part of their collective identity and we are fairly certain this series will be popular as kiwiana gifts delivered to homesick NZers living overseas this Xmas.

Combining images with a message means, Kelly says, that commercial art often has to be more ingenious than fine art because the artist has to find a way of making the two parts of the artwork work together effectively and harmoniously.  The original paintings are on recycled wood done by hand using only paint brushes and mahl stick without the use of any stencils. The high quality prints using extremely lightfast inks capture this handmade retro feel with the details of the original picture's surface captured in superb detail.

Shown here is one of our favourite prints from Kelly's new series of kiwiana images - Sunday Drive.  This is Kelly's celebration of the great kiwi pastime of spending Sunday driving the family on a sightseeing journey by car with no particular destination in mind (perhaps visiting the rellies [relatives] along the way).  His complete range of new art prints is in the Jason Kelly collection and all of his contemporary kiwiana style artwork features in NZ Prints' ever expanding gallery of kiwiana art.

Kiwiana Art - Iconic Kiwi Pictures & Prints

Kiwiana in the New Zealand art world now refers to more than just appropriated or recycled images of mid twentieth century kitsch kiwi icons like plastic Watties tomato sauce bottles and buzzy bees.

The term kiwiana (note loss of capitalisation) seems to be gaining a looser and consequently more broad meaning in everyday usage, at least in our part of the New Zealand art industry. We first noticed this when picture framers and gallery owners would ask us if we had any new kiwiana images - and they were meaning prints by contemporary NZ painters like Grahame Sydney rather than art prints of iconic Kiwiana (for example a picture of a pavlova topped with kiwifruit). Our picture framers and gallery owners were using kiwiana as an instinctive shorthand to easily describe and convey that they wanted "not imported" art. In particular kiwiana was being used to describe typically NZ pakeha art rather than indigenous New Zealand Maori art and design like Kowhaiwhai.

A Kiwiana definition for non-New Zealanders reading NZ Art Print News: Kiwi are the flightless bird that is one of New Zealand's national emblems and also the nickname that most New Zealanders would be comfortable using to refer to their own nationality alongside the more formal "New Zealander" when speaking to others. The "ana" suffix is commonly affixed to words to show that the items in question are representative of or a collection of items or representative/associated with the term - the first usage of the word Kiwiana is not known but its initial coinage must have a derivation owing at least in part to a very similar word used describe domestically designed and created art from the United States "Americana". 

After much discussion (!) a couple of months ago we somewhat reluctantly began the process of putting together a Kiwiana icons/ Kiwiana art collection at New Zealand Art Prints. The impetus came from customers who were asking for Kiwiana gifts - usually looking for presents for friends and family living outside of New Zealand but we had resisted creating a separate gallery for a long time because the term Kiwiana always grated slightly with us and we didn't use the term ourselves. We definitely felt uncomfortable about all contemporary NZ art being called "Kiwiana" and likewise believed that consigning an artists' images to a gallery of iconic Kiwiana would be seen as damning their artwork with very faint praise - as in "It's not much good artistically but ok as a slice of Kiwiana"! However as we have delved into the Kiwiana idea with increasing enthusiasm we think we have managed to curate a fairly comprehensive collection of Kiwiana art culled from our existing range of prints with the addition of new distinctly Kiwiana images from NZ contemporary artists like Jason Kelly (whose work "Tiki Tour" is shown here alongside the Paua, Koru and Pohutukawa Blossom artwork by Alison Gilmour to illustrate this article).  But we haven't included all NZ art prints because we don't think all recognisably NZ art qualifies as Kiwiana...

It has been an interesting process curating the Kiwiana collection because we quickly found that there are some pictures that just seem to fit in this new collection without any argument - whereas a picture of a famous geographical NZ icons such as Mt Cook or Rangitoto or even New Zealand's favourite painting of Cass by Rita Angus just don't seem to qualify as kiwiana. From this experience it seems we know "Kiwiana art" when we see it even if trying to define it in the abstract is difficult. Does a natural icon like Mt Cook/Aoraki have to be re-interpreted by an artist or be translated into a logo or brand to become Kiwiana? Or is kiwiana (this writer has to consider each time whether to capitalise the initial K or not which is perhaps indicative of the fluidity in breadth of the meaning of the word) broad enough to include any image that is collectively famous for nearly all New Zealanders but not people from other countries (eg Four Square store's Four Square Man), or Charles Goldie's Maori portrait known as a Good Joke and perhaps extending to a scene that is so widely reproduced it has become a visual cliche (Mitre Peak in Milford Sound) even if it is painted in divergent styles by different artists.

So the key question we had to resolve was: Is Kiwiana is what we think it should be (a relatively narrow category of slightly kitsch New Zealand pop art used to illustrate a flimsy but wryly humourous sense of national identity) or is Kiwiana a much broader category of nearly all non-Maori art that is made in New Zealand and is recognisable kiwi to a NZ viewer who is not familar with the nationality of the artist? We decided on the narrower definition. Depending on the popularity of this collection we will commission new (perhaps high quality photographic prints on canvas) pictures of kiwiana icons if we get sufficient demand for classic kiwiana images not already available.  We welcome your comments on this post about kiwiana generally or suggestions of art that you think should be (or not be) included in our new Kiwiana collection - please leave a comment below: