Beginnings

Last year we promised to make some the photos we've taken over the years available. They reflect our own interests and friendships, of course, and the picture they show of NZ art is idiosyncratic to say the least, but the passing of time has given them added interest. Thanks to the agreement of the artists involved, these images are now freely available to anyone who finds them of use.

As we've been doing this a long time what you see now is just a sample (Clairmont 71-78, Cotton 94, 03, Dashper 85-88, Dawson 91, Driver 08-11, Freeman 94, Harris 89-06, Peryer 85-12, Shannon 89, 93) so we'll be adding images throughout the year. When you visit you will see we have also included a number one-off photos of artists and art world people we've met under a 'portraits' section. If you have any thoughts on how this site could be improved let us know. Hope you enjoy it.

The pics can be found on over-the-net.weebly.com or, if you hate typing, click this link to go direct

Images: Top left to right, Phil Clairmont hiding behind Jackson Pollock’s Tate Gallery catalogue in 1978 and Marie Shannon in her Richmond Road studio in 1989. Middle, Neil Dawson’s studio during the construction of Paua for the Auckland Civic Centre in 1991. Bottom left, Julian Dashper in his studio in Richmond Road, Auckland, 1988 and Jeffery Harris’s studio in Dunedin in 2006.

Mr Fowler

Over the years we have taken photos of artists we have met and known so we thought that form time to time we'd put one up here for the record. This image is of Mr Fowler a self-taught painter who lived in Motueka. We met him in the late 1970s via the artist Toss Woollaston who encouraged him to paint local sights like the beach at Kaiteriteri and other parts of the Nelson coast. Mr Fowler was chain smoking every time we met him and we never saw him leave the couch. Responding to Woollaston’s enthusiasm, Mr Fowler was given a small exhibition at the Dowse Art Gallery in the early eighties. At that time the Dowse sold work from its shows and a few paintings were purchased including one by Tony Fomison who was also a big Fowler fan.

Image: Mr Fowler photographed at his home in 1980

COMMENT: 13:01:12 Ross wrote: "I still have 2 lovely Lindsay Fowler paintings and my son Felix also has 2. The joy of his work is that whilst he was painting in the late 80's early 90's, he solely painted from memory and created a beautiful uncluttered vision of the Kaiteri -Riwaka area. Interestingly the buildings and sheds that dotted the landscape were often painted on cardboard first and moved around his compositions until he was happy with their placements."