Designed to stimulate
The natural progression from enjoying the presentation of images in a creative way, was to collaborate with a small group of selected artists, allowing us to showcase quality artworks enhanced by well considered framing.
The Gallery at The 45th Degree features work from NZ artist Fane Flaws, British print artist Brenda Hartill and local Wanaka based photographer Gilbert Van Reenen.
Brenda Hartill is a British artist and printmaker based in her studio in East Sussex and in her studio in the Andalucian mountain village of Gaucin in Southern Spain. Her work explores the texture, pattern and light of the landscape, and ranges from finely drawn figurative works to bold, heavily embossed abstract images. She is most interested in the strong light and shadow of Southern Europe, as well as remote New Zealand, and London cityscapes.
Her main medium is print, both etching and collagraph, and she has recently written a book "Collagraph and mixed media printmaking" for A and C Black.
She is also interested in collage which has recently led to a new series of works using encaustic wax in which to embed fragments of print and natural materials.
She works in water-colour, oils, collage, and mixed media, as well as etching and collagraph, the limited edition print techniques for which she is best known. Brenda exhibits in over 50 galleries world-wide particularly in Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and has over 300 prints in her portfolio.
Brenda Hartill is a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (R E), her work is in the collections of many large companies, including BP, Bank of England, Global and BT, and her work is sort after by art consultancies, interior designers and architects worldwide.
N.Z. artist Fane Flaws has been working prolifically for over thirty years across a diverse range of media. Flaws has worked as a graphic designer, painter, songwriter, director of music videos, short film, TV commercials, and a writer, illustrator and publisher of children’s literature.Flaws started painting when taking a break from music on Waiheke Island in the late seventies, and has never stopped.
He currently works with paint, print and sculptural assemblage. His methodology embodies the kind of uninhibited in-your-face attitude that professes a humorous yet cunningly poignant employment of both material and subject.
“I am essentially a ‘mark maker’. Everything else follows from whatever skill I have developed through drawing; of course there is always the problem of where to put the paint, let alone which colour”.Fane Flaws has been exhibiting throughout New Zealand in various one person and group shows since 1984. He holds over 40 awards for his directorial work in film, music video and television, and his work is represented in private collections within N.Z. Australia, USA, Japan and the UK. He is presently based in Napier.
Gilbert van Reenen is of Dutch descent and emigrated to New Zealand from Indonesia with his family as a youngster. He trained at Massey University as a Veterinary Scientist and has practiced as a veterinarian in various parts of the South Island. He later specialised in Deer Medicine and Reproduction Technology and Research. In '95 he turned his life long interest and passion for photography in to a second career and rapidly gained a reputation as a creative and highly innovative professional photographer.
He has developed a portfolio of highly distinctive images which are widely sought after as archival art prints and murals for décor for private and public buildings in several countries. He lives near Wanaka in Central Otago with his fabric artist wife Robyn and travels throughout New Zealand and internationally on his assignments.
