This mural I have been working on sporadically for a year. It is almost finished and is the most ambitious painting I have yet done. Old people love it as all the products in the store are from 1925 or earlier although I used a little artistic licence in that some products are from a little later. It contains references to World War One, the British Empire, the 1919 flu epidemic, the great age of Radio and products readily available over the counter include gelignite, ammunition, strychnine and whale oil. Politically Correct? No. God save the King....
This was carved from one big block of polystyrene and was fixed to a billboard in central Auckland for a year. It was an advertisement for a new middle of the road radio station- more excitement in the middle of the road was the wording...
I was back at Hungry Creek Art school for a short time of study and Andrew Ventor, the Director of the school, had a son who owned some billboards in the city and had a client who wanted this on a billboard. Andrew and I went 50 50 on the job, he had the contract and setup money and the business acumen and I had the talent.
We figured out how to do it, how to frame and fix it and where to get the materials we needed and posed Andrew's son and girlfriend in a photographer's studio that had a chaise longue and I took a ladder and a camera along and the couple embraced while I took a dozen or so photos of them from every possible angle.
Then began a frantic week of sculpting to a deadline while the Andrew made the mounting and fixing bits and pieces. It was a lot of fun and good money for an art student as I then was..
I made this sign at Art School and donated it to the school and no-one seemed to care or take interest so I took it down, took it home and put it on my new house.
It's there still, on the Moth house in Sandspit and the upstairs where my studio was is now a Yoga studio run by the new owners of the house who made it a condition of sale of the house that the Moth remain there.
Nice to have ones work appreciated...
