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Art made during lockdown will come out of the artists’ home studios and go on display this week at Estuary Arts Centre in Ōrewa, once Auckland is in Step 2 of Level 3.
Last year, the arts centre presented an exhibition by the Covid Collective – all works were made during the Level 4 lockdown.
This lockdown has produced a new group of Covid Creatives, including several local artists. Here’s a sneak preview of the exhibition that is expected to open this week:
Fueled by teaching
Part time art teacher and Anglican minister Fred Brunell says lockdown enabled him to focus on some big art projects, including a large landscape depicting Akaroa.
Closer to home, he has painted a cherry tree that grows on his Whangaparāoa property for the Covid Creatives show.
Fred says lockdown has not been a burden, as he is lucky to have a large and social bubble around him.
He always loved and collected art, but didn’t begin painting until around a decade ago, at the same time as he started teaching.
“For me, painting has to have fuel – something to drive it,” he says. “Giving back to others through teaching gives me that fuel.”
Painting the five senses
Fiona Kennedy of Red Beach says her art provided a chance to learn, along with new friendships, in lockdown.
Fiona is a florist and says at the start of last year’s lockdown she decided to have a go at painting – something she’d always wanted to try. She bought a canvas and paints before realising she didn’t know the first thing about it – not even how to mix colours correctly. The canvas therefore went unpainted until she took classes with Lee Stephens at Estuary Arts, which she did straight after the lockdown ended.
When Level 4 came around again, she was able to focus on using what she had learned to create landscapes with a ‘five senses’ theme. She says regular Zoom classes with Lee have been a huge bonus.
“A small group of women took part and friendships developed,” Fiona says. “Along with the painting, some really personal stuff has been shared about how we’re doing. It was a rewarding and unexpected delight of the lockdown.”
Rhymes reimagined
Estuary Arts manager and artist Kim Boyd spent lockdown making a series of sculptural lights around the theme of “fabulous well known children’s stories and rhymes”. These included the Lewis Carroll poem The Hunting of the Snark and There was an Old Woman who lived in a Shoe. Others, including the one pictured, are inspired by Hobbiton.
How fragile we are
Ōrewa artist Yvonne Gray says she is lucky to have a home studio where she can do something creative every day. “It’s my happy place and I think doing anything creative is fantastic for your wellbeing,” she says. The acrylic painter and printmaker is a member of a newly formed Hibiscus Coast Printmakers Group, which has 19 members so far, and they have been keeping in touch over lockdown. Yvonne has been working on large paintings in black and white with a small hint of one colour – one of them, called Fragility, is for the Covid Creatives show. “The hint of green is about the fragility of our planet, and also of humans and nature,” she says. Her regular walks in Eaves’ Bush and other Ōrewa spots have led to another series of works celebrating the colours of spring.
The Covid Creatives exhibition is set to open on Wednesday, November 10.
