PHOTO
Graphic designer/illustrator Ross Ellen has a contemporary art image featuring in the Ashburton Clock Tower exhibit in the Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum.
He’s honoured to be included.
The exhibition marks 50 years of the iconic clock.
‘‘I feel honoured (to be included).
‘‘I’ve always loved the clock even since I was a wee, young fella,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s such as radical design. It’s crazy.’’
Ellen, 64, said he liked that it was not ‘‘your standard looking clock tower’’.
‘‘You’d think, doing a clock tower, you'd expect a brick and mortar sort of boring clock tower with some sort of carved stone.
‘‘And yet there was this sort of wild looking thing.’’
He grew up in Christchurch, but said the clock had always fascinated him.
‘‘Travelling through here as a young fella in the back of my parents car, I just loved the clock for some reason.’’
‘‘It just resonated with me.’’
So when he moved to Ashburton late last year, he went out and photographed it, then produced 15 unique prints.
His work starts with a photograph and is downloaded so contrasts can be altered. It is then printed.
He then uses acrylic paint across a silicone plate to then create his image, layer by layer.
Each one is a mono print, and has different threads of colour woven into its finished product.
Ellen has designed album covers from some of New Zealand’s iconic bands, worked with the late engineer John Britten and Christchurch City Council.
He is an air brush artist as well.
‘‘It’s the only thing I was good at,’’ he said, of graphic design.
He learnt air brushing one-on-one with an old master in Sydney.
‘‘I had to learn computers - I took a computing course - then did a tertiary graphic design course for print mainly.’’
He started his own business in New Zealand in 1991.
He is now semi retired and focusing on his art.
When Ellen read of the clock exhibition he approached the museum.
‘‘I brought my prints down here and they were keen to display them,‘‘ he said.
There were also A3 sized prints for sale.
The clock officially turns 50, at 4pm on November 26.
At Rokowhiria, the exhibition ‘Icon: 50 Years of the Ashburton Clock Tower’ explores the story of the clock's former life in the Ashburton Post and Telegraph Office building, its eventual restoration, and the innovation behind its life inside today’s award-winning clock tower.
Static displays, miniature models and film footage is available for viewing.
Built to celebrate 100 years of local government in Ashburton, it is one of the most photographed clock towers in Aotearoa, and beyond various administrative and tourism-associated logo design, its visual presence has inspired local artists.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is a scale model of the Ashburton Clock Tower made by former local builder John Corbett and gifted to Ashburton District Council in 2004.
Corbett worked for Bradford Construction who built the clock tower in 1976.
Objects and archives displayed alongside this model include technical drawings of the clock tower by Warren and Mahoney Architects, photographic prints of the clock being restored, a slideshow featuring construction footage from 1976, and much more.
A collection of letters to the editor from the Ashburton Guardian are also on display, featuring varied opinions from the Ashburton public after the clock was reinstated in November 1976.
Standout quotes include one local stating the town’s people would be ‘driven desperate from our beds in the early hours’ to ‘climb the slippery tower and muffle the bells with our pillows’.
■ Icon: 50 Years of the Ashburton Clock Tower will be on display until October 18 and November 16 to 29. Rokowhiria Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum will be closed to the public between October 19 and November 15 while a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system is installed.