I’m your fan
Couple’s tribute to singer
Internationally recognised mural artist Graham “Mr G” Hoete has created what could be a New Zealand first in residential Tauranga.
Over two days last week, Hoete spray-painted a portrait of Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen — on a home in Otūmoetai for everyone to see.
“I’m pretty sure this is a New Zealand first, man, in terms of a spraypainted portrait on a nice modern house,” the 39-year-old artist, who is based in Pāpāmoa, told the Bay of Plenty Times yesterday.
“This was very unique and special and it kind of needed to be done right and tastefully . . . the response it’s had has just been awesome.”
The homeowners who commissioned the artwork, Tom Zonneveld and Sue Kurtovich, are huge fans of Cohen, who died in November 2016 aged 82.
They watched him perform in Auckland three times, and Kurtovich even travelled to Toronto, Canada to see him play.
The 59-year-old is said to be the bigger fan of the two and has collected every record Cohen released.
“We just love his writing, his songs,” Zonneveld, 63, said. “I had open heart surgery about five years ago, and I just listened to Leonard Cohen in the hospital for five days or six days.
“I think we’ve got about 180-190 of his songs on the iPad.”
The couple bought their house, at 61 Bureta Rd, in April last year after moving to Tauranga from Auckland.
They have a motorhome named after one of Cohen’s songs, Closing Time, and play a lot of his music as they drive it around New Zealand.
The couple got the idea for the mural after seeing Hoete and his portraits on TV a few months ago.
After meeting and sharing some photos of Cohen, the piece was drawn up, and on Friday and Saturday it came to life under clear blue skies.
Zonneveld said he watched, photographed and filmed Hoete working from start to finish, and crowds stopped to look and take photos.
That attention had not stopped since.
Zonneveld said the public interest did not worry them at all.
“I’ve got a lot of art inside the house; no one can see it except Sue and myself. So I thought ‘Let’s do something that everyone can see’.”
As for Hoete’s finished masterpiece, Zonneveld said: “It’s brilliant. It’s so Leonard, it really is. “Graham is very talented.” Hoete said while he respected Cohen’s genius, he was not as big a fan as Zonneveld and Kurtovich.
He said he was flat out with work but the idea of painting a portrait on the house was too good to pass up.
“I love doing stuff that’s unique and different, so I kind of shuffled things around to make it happen.
“It’s already become a bit of a local icon,” he said.