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Stanmore Bay artist Darlene Te Young’s portrait of her maternal grandfather shows a young man, just 21 when World War I began, in his army uniform facing an unknown future with a smile.
Darlene says she knew little about her grandfather, George Ernest Coxon, before she began work on the portrait. However, investigations at the Auckland Museum shed some light on his military service, describing him as a former farm hand who served in the infantry.
Darlene says he was born in Liverpool and emigrated to NZ not long before the war, then had to go back to Europe to fight. He survived the war and died in 1959. Like many veterans, he never spoke about the war to his family.
Darlene began painting more than 20 years ago. She qualified as an exhibition designer, but after graduation took part-time jobs that allowed her the freedom to paint. Her first solo show was in 2001. She began painting portraits last year, starting with a self-portrait, then painting other family members.
Her portrait of her grandfather is included in Estuary Arts Centre’s second World War I exhibition, Visions and Voices, which opens on April 4.
More than 5000 people viewed last year’s World War 1 Programme at the centre in Orewa. This year’s exhibition features work by around 20 artists, most of them local.
Original work made in the trenches, on loan from Greg Moyle’s collection, is also included.
Around 30 students of the Art Lab in Manly, aged 6–11, have spent more than a month working on four panels on the theme of Peace.
Artist Anna Evans says that the children brainstormed what peace means to them as part of the process of designing the murals.
The works, funded by the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board, will be installed at the front of Estuary Arts Centre in Orewa this week, as part of its World War I show, but will remain there until the end of the year.
Pictured are art students, from left, Ella Butler, Maia and Isla Young, Ella Price and Cassie Bayes with the murals.
