A piece of civic art donated to the Lawrence Service Centre this week has more to it than meets the eye.
Auckland artist Dick Frizzell was present at a ceremonial public unveiling of his 1.65m limited edition print of Lawrence on Wednesday, and revealed the image's hidden secrets to gathered onlookers.
Despite being inspired to capture the elevated perspective of the township in 1991, Frizzell said he had not begun to paint the resulting townscape until 2017.
He had first spotted its artistic potential on seeing the town laid out by a TVNZ cameraman, for broadcaster Paul Holmes' nightly magazine show of the day.
Frizzell made a subsequent beeline for Lawrence, and eventually narrowed down the cameraman's hillside filming location, from which he took his own traditional Kodak camera photograph.
That had gathered dust on a shelf until 2017, when the noted Kiwiana pop artist was galvanised into action.
"I came across the photo again, somewhat faded now, and thought, `I'm going to bloody well have a go at it,"' he said.
On completing the striking work of art some weeks later, Frizzell received helpful critique from an unexpected quarter.
"I'd put the image on Facebook, where Tahir from the local petrol station, who's a Facebook friend, responded saying the painting needed a bit of life.
"There's no living thing in the whole of Lawrence, he told me - and he was right."
Frizzell returned to his easel, and made an important, if surreptitious, addition.
"If you look right down here in the shadows by this cross, there's a black cat. That's Tahir's cat."
The donation of the $3000 print occurred thanks to the fundraising efforts of a group calling itself "The Gallivanting Ladies" of Lawrence.
On a sojourn to Matakana, north of Auckland, earlier this year, the adventurous retirees were surprised to discover the original Lawrence townscape in a gallery there.
A plan was soon conceived to "bring it home", spokeswoman Elaine Crawford said.
"Unfortunately the original is worth $100,000, but thanks to the gallery, Mr Frizzell and several local donors and community groups, we've been able to bring this print back to Lawrence today, for the lasting enjoyment of the town. We're very grateful to all concerned."
