An artist’s bush escape
His brush is tiny, the details minute.
Among native bush and wild flower, artist Dean Venrooy’s hand rests against an adjustable pole as he peers at his latest painting.
The pole keeps his hand at the right distance from his canvas: usually found items including sea glass, pieces of wood or the inside of a jewellery case.
He transfers a dot of oil paint from a palette onto his finger tip before adding the brush strokes.
‘‘I’m really not sure what made me want to be an artist, it’s just one of those things that you do when you’re a child and you either keep doing it or you don’t ... I kind of just kept doing it,’’ Venrooy said.
To learn Venrooy is a solitary man comes as no surprise. Every morning, he walks from his Governor’s Bay house, which has no power or running water, along the foreshore to his family home where his mother still lives.
About four years ago, after ‘‘15 cold winters in a shady part of the bay’’, Venrooy built a studio at the top of the family section, which sits on a steep sliver of hillside above the main road.
Behind the blue shack is native bush, the same that inspired his Nonesuch Gully series, which is on show at City Art Depot in Sydenham, Christchurch until November 25.
‘‘All the pieces are in Nonesuch Gully, which is an invented place that I’ve been working on. I’ve been doing these various landscapes that are basically gullies, loosely based on my surroundings, but nowhere in particular,’’ he says.
Many of the pieces are painted onto sea glass, which Venrooy finds during his foreshore walks and trips into Lyttleton Harbour in his rowboat.
‘‘I spend quite a lot of time rowing around the harbour so [the glass] could be Quail Island, it could be one of the other points, it could be anywhere around here.
‘‘You’ve got to slowly build it up, [glass] is quite unforgiving compared to canvas. You’ve got to let the paint set, it can be quite difficult and it can lift off, so you’ve got to place it on very gently.’’
Books, several chairs and an easel decorate his small studio. Little else. Black curtains drape across part of the small space, because ‘‘sometimes I get distracted by looking out at the birds’’.
‘‘It’s a lovely place to work. I’m surrounded by bush and by birds, and I get to walk the foreshore every day on the way up here.’’
Many of Venrooy’s pieces portray birds in a collaborative role, working together to lift a curtain or fluttering above landscapes.
‘‘That could be the case, but I don’t think about it in those terms. I’m just trying to make a painting.
''I'm really not sure what made me want to be an artist, it's just one of those things that you do when you're a child and you either keep doing it or you don't ... I kind of just kept doing it.'' Dean Venrooy, artist
Question: How many people are expected to attend this year’s Canterbury A&P Show?
Answer: An estimated 100,000 people will pass through the gates over the three days this week the show runs. About 6500 entries are on display, from livestock to horses to chickens, and 500 trade exhibitors will be peddling their goods to punters. Get down there Canterbury, this is us on show.