A FAMILY AFFAIR
Painter raises his sons on art
Colin Hoare’s shop Displico Signs is deceptively industriallooking.
It’s a compact little grey building on Palmerston North’s Domain St, filled with boxes of pasteboard and paints. There’s stacks of signs on the shelves advertising local businesses and events in bold colours – bright graphics and harsh lines.
There are portraits on the wall. One, with soft green and grey tones, depicts a young boy of about 12, sprawled on a couch with a book in hand. It is one of Hoare’s sons, James.
For Hoare, a sign-writer and artist, paintings are permanent, keeping a moment suspended in time on a wall.
‘‘Everyone’s got a digital camera. Everyone’s got photos on their phone. They don’t print photos out anymore. What happens if you lose your phone or your camera? You’ve lost all those moments you thought you had forever. Paintings aren’t like that. Paintings will be passed down from generation to generation.
‘‘Art becomes part of the family. It’s part of our family,’’ says Hoare. Just like their father, Hoare’s twin sons Alex and James have been painting and drawing for most of their lives.
Hoare and his wife Lyn have raised their family on art. Now, the boys are set to display their work alongside their father in their first exhibition at Taylor-jensen Fine Arts.
‘‘The boys would just sit at the table in Taylor-jensen and draw and muck around,’’ says Hoare, ‘‘ever since they learned to walk’’.
Now 19, both boys are pursuing creative careers. Alex studies musical performance at Victoria University in Wellington.
‘‘Alex does a lot of work. He paints as a release, really. He’ll write and draw and play music,’’ says Hoare.
‘‘James’s style is quite different. He’s more into gaming. He studies computer 3D art and production at Massey University in Wellington. He’s always been involved in graphics.’’
The amount of different styles on display in the shop would make you think they were the works of various artists, but every piece is Hoare’s own.
The shop smells of paint, fresh paper and ink. Hoare, dressed in grey, is surrounded by colours. They crowd in around him.
‘‘I’ve had an interesting week,’’ he says, perched on a swivel chair behind the cluttered desk.
‘‘I’ve been nominated for the Adam Portrait award in Wellington.’’ He mentions it offhand, but his eyes are glowing with excitement. Hoare’s also excited to be featured in an upcoming issue of the New
Zealand Artist magazine. His art graced the cover in 2014.
When asked how long he’s been painting for, he chuckles. ‘‘How old am I?’’
Art is what connects Hoare’s family. He says paintings are heirlooms – his portraits of his family members will be passed down for generations. But, although a talent for painting obviously runs in the Hoare family, Hoare puts it all down to practice.
‘‘I’ve got a theory, alright,’’ says Hoare, resting his arms on the desk. ‘‘Everybody has a talent, you’ve just got to find it. Anyone at kindy can draw a stick figure. It depends what you do with the stick figure, how you develop it.’’
‘‘This applies to everything in life, I think, every kind of hobby. I’m still at the stick figure stage with cooking and music,’’ he says, chuckling. ‘‘Can’t cook, can’t play any instruments.’’
Hoare is proud of his sons, who have gone from drawing stick figures while sitting among the art in Taylor-jensen gallery, to creating their own styles. Hoare’s boys have grown up in a house full of paintings, not just his, but the work of over half a dozen different artists. From the way Hoare talks about buying art, you can tell he sees it as an investment. ‘‘Once you’ve bought a painting, then you’ve got it for life.
‘‘People say art isn’t necessary, but what does a painting cost? Maybe $300-$400 for a piece, but space out that cost over a year and it’s nothing,’’ he says, emphatically. ‘‘It’s absolutely worth it.’’
For Hoare, his two professions of painting and sign writing overlap, but there are distinct differences between them.
‘‘When someone comes in with a concept for a sign, they know exactly what they want and it’s got to be perfect. It’s really narrow. When I paint, it’s like a release. I can make a mess. I can do what I want and I do it because I enjoy it.
‘‘Some of my paintings people don’t like, but I paint for myself, you know,’’ he says.
‘‘If people like it, that’s great.’’ There are various paintings of all different styles and sizes hung in Hoare’s shop, amid logos and signs and shelves stacked with sheets of plywood and plastic.
One of the few landscapes on the wall stands out among the portraits. It shows a white building set against a backdrop of golden desert and blue sky with the bold words ‘‘Point175’’ painted on the sand. Like all his paintings, this one has a story.
‘‘Now, that one is pretty significant to me. My father was in the 25th battalion in World War II and most people don’t know the story of that battalion, how they lost most of their soldiers in one day.
‘‘I think it was about 100 killed, over 100 wounded and 100 taken prisoner. Point 175 – that’s my family history. That’s what that painting is.’’
There are more paintings out the back of the shop, past piles of signage and buckets of brushes. Out in the garage, the floor is a mosaic of paint splatters, and canvases line the steel walls.
There’s a half-finished portrait sitting on a wooden easel in front of a table covered in brushes, mixed colours spilling into each other, crumpled cloths stained with blue and orange and purple.
‘‘It’s pretty empty right now. Everything’s at Taylor-jensen ready for the exhibition,’’ he says. Nonetheless, there’s an impressive collection in this garage studio, mainly portraits in oil and ink.
Hoare is known for his wall of paintings in Moxies Cafe on George St in Palmerston North.
‘‘Someone famous comes into the cafe. They get their photo taken and then the staff get me to paint the person’s portrait.
‘‘Moxies has about 60 of my paintings,’’ says Hoare, sitting back down on his swivel chair and resting an elbow on the desk.
‘‘They’re mainly men. There aren’t as many famous women coming into the cafe. Or maybe there are, but they’re just not as open about telling people how important they are.’’ He chuckles.
The exhibition will feature different styles of work from Hoare and the twins. ‘‘Portraits, a few abstract things. James has some concept art as I call it – some drawings he’ll use for his animation. Alex has some drawings and paintings there.
‘‘The boys are developing their own style,’’ he says.
‘‘The most important thing for an artist is to find a style that suits you.
‘‘An artist’s style should be their signature. You shouldn’t have to look for the signature on a painting to know whose it is.’’
■ The exhibition, A Family Affair, will be on display at Taylor-jensen Fine Arts during February.
‘‘Art becomes part of the family. It’s part of our family.’’
Colin Hoare