Bay of Plenty dairy farmer and artist wraps it up

19 Jan 2022

Bay of Plenty dairy farmer Tania Akehurst splits her time between farm work and art – and the art is getting a slight edge. Tania has her own gallery on her Galatea farm and for a recent exhibition she decided the garden needed to make a statement.  The obvious answer - wrapped trees painted with Resene colours.

“I’d seen the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama who is famous for her tree wraps, and I thought I could do something similar. I really didn’t know how it would turn out until I got it up, but everybody loved it,” she says.

Tania used simple cotton cloth which she painted with testpots of Resene Ayers Rock, Resene Touche, Resene Broom, Resene Lightning Yellow, Resene Turbo and Resene California. She cut the cloth into strips and with a staple gun and the help of a few friends, wrapped her garden trees. 

“The colours used on the art trees were selected by choosing light and dark colours of a similar hue, in this case orange, yellow and red. The base colour is Resene Ayers Rock

Wrapped trees are just a sideline for Tania, her main body of work is painting landscapes, particularly trees and making hand-painted paper collages. “It puts me in my happy place. Inspiration comes from the nature that surrounds me, I see colour and pattern all around me,” she says.

When it comes to favourite colours in her own home though, Tania sticks to a classic neutral.

“Funnily enough it is not a bright colour, it’s just plain Resene Pearl Lusta.  I have painted all our farmhouses with this colour inside as it is such an easy colour to match anything with.

A commission from a client also saw Resene paints to the fore.  The client wanted a painting of her house, and for authenticity Tania painted it on canvas using the exact colours, classic cream Resene Pearl Lusta (Tania’s personal favourite) and Resene Grey Friars, a popular grey.

See more of Tania’s work at www.taniaakehurstartist.com.

Published: 19 Jan 2022