Rod Slater
Of the many interests and passions that have come and gone in Rod’s life, art and sailing have remained. Pen and ink along with oil were his early mediums of choice. However, while confined below deck in his yacht “Bontekoe” during a bad spell of weather in Tonga, he began experimenting with watercolours in earnest.
“Hours of watching the sea on long passages combined with the numerous yachts I’d clambered aboard had burned images into my creative conscience that looked for release.” He discovered the freedom that watercolours gave him for creating the curved hulls of ships, the fine lines of the sales and the curve of their form filled with air. It was the water colours that made those sails come to life on the paper. He has continued to be fascinated with capturing the fluidity and depth of water colour using water colours as a medium.
“This provides an unlimited source of challenging opportunities for artistic expression and I acknowledge that I have only begun to dip below the surface of this potential.”
Rod has also translating the beautiful form of motorcycles and their gleaming chrome into artworks using acrylic paints.
Featured Artist
Sari Rajendra
The paintings of Malaysian-born artist Sari Rajendra introduce a whole new meaning to the word “abstract”. She creates her works by mounting a hand-printed silk batik scarf on linen canvas and then using that as the canvas for her own artwork. From one artwork in the form of batik, Sari has created another with what she calls “its own landscape of colour and form”. Sari also creates more conventional acrylic paintings on fine linen canvases.
Last year was a big year for Sari. Her work became available to the New Zealand market for the first time. She also held her first New Zealand exhibition at the Lake House Arts Centre in Takapuna, Auckland in March 2012, the same month that she exhibited at the Northcote College’s last Affair of the Heart event.