Rural letterboxes, pioneering gold miners and native tussocks on The Hills golf course served as inspirations for two Arrowtown artists who launch their double-billed exhibition this week.
"Otago Colour" features dozens of new works by Christine, Lady Hill and Jenny Mehrtens in the gallery of the Lakes District Museum, Arrowtown. After an invitation-only preview attended by an expected 150 guests tomorrow night, the exhibition opens to the public on Friday until January 29.
Lady Hill trained in art schools in the United Kingdom before moving to New Zealand to teach at Whangarei Girls' High School. She maintained an interest in art both as a working artist and as a patron and has resided in the Wakatipu since 1991.
She presented an ordered series of 15 oils on canvas paintings of the tussocks planted around the golf course resort where she lives. She said she was fascinated by the changing colour, textures and moods of the plants and, in a new approach, captured what she saw on her iPhone.
"From there I did small pastels to get my head around what I wanted to do, then used them as a reference."
Dunedin-born Mehrtens studied painting under Roberto Paulet at the Inverlochy Art School in Wellington in 2006 and 2007. Her family moved to Arrowtown in 2010 and her studio is near the historic Chinese settlement.
The historical records of gold miners and their hardship and survival formed the foundation of one of her two series on display. She presented 22 oils on canvas in her Miners' Gold and Local Letterboxes series.
"The winter made me feel how cold it must have been for them living there and I started researching," she said.
"I felt a lot of gratitude towards them because that's how this place got started."
The clothing design entrepreneur said she was struck by the originality of many of the mailboxes in the Wakatipu, which included a tractor radiator, microwave oven and old gold sluicing equipment.
"It's still life, it's a play of light and shadow and I find the groupings very interesting. I love the way people have expressed themselves and it's fun if people recognise their mailboxes."
