OD- My Favourite Street Artist

While at the Mount I took the chance of shooting a few more of my favourite street artist’s work. OD aka Owen Dippie is a world renowned street artist who I have been following for a few years now. Owen grew up in Mt Maunganui but sadly for the Mount & Tauranga he has recently moved to Auckland which means there won’t be any more random murals appearing around the city’s industrial areas.

These first two are quite visible on the rear of industrial buildings along the main route into Mt Maunganui (they're not from the series)

The Incredible Hulk- which was part of OD's super hero series.

The critically endangered Maui’s Dolphin-

OD will continue to paint, as funds and time allow, commissioned works for the Tauranga City Council’s  ‘Larger than Life’ series. This is one of the five painted so far, it’s hoped that there’ll be 15 works of art eventually placed around the inner city of Tauranga.

From the famous Michelangelo sculpture, The Pieta-

Here is the fifth in the series and last for the time being. We have visited this building many times- our lawyer’s offices were once here!

The ‘Goddess of Love' as seen in Botticelli's 1486 painting ‘The Birth of Venus’-

You must admit this is quite an impressive sight- especially if you wake up and throw open the curtains in the hotel room across the carpark. At 27 metres high and covering six storeys, it’s one of OD biggest works. Although not as large, and in my opinion as wonderful, as my favourite piece of all; The Ballerina, painted on the rear of the Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch.

Owen was also commissioned by Tauranga Boys College to paint a series of mural portraits featuring a range of Kiwi heroes that depict the college’s house leaders. It was just as well it was school holidays when I stopped by to check them out.

Sir Apirana Ngata- a Ngati Porou leader and politician, Apirana Ngata is one of New Zealand's best-known figures. As MP for Eastern Maori, he worked to strengthen Maori communities and revive Maori culture.

Moana Nui a Kiwa Ngarimu- a New Zealand soldier and posthumous recipient in 1943 of the Victoria Cross. He was also the first Maori to receive this honour.

Sir Edmund Hillary- a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Sir Bernard Freyberg- a British-born soldier and Victoria Cross recipient, who later served as the seventh Governor-General of New Zealand from 1946 to 1952.

Sir Ernest Rutherford- a New Zealand-born British physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics.

Sir Murray Halberg- a former New Zealand middle distance runner who won the gold medal in the 5000 metres event at the 1960 Olympics.

Tauranga Boys College is one of the largest boy's colleges in New Zealand with a roll of over 1,870 pupils. What great role models these famous and outstanding men are for future generations of boys.

You can see more of Owen’s works in this blog post- Girl with a Pearl Earring, which I did a couple of years ago just before we left Tauranga for our life on the road.

Take A Bow Christchurch

I know you’ll find this hard to believe but I put my camera down for 10 days while we were parked up at the NZMCA Park in Weedons, on the outskirt of Christchurch city. This will be the one and only post from our time in Christchurch.

Well, I almost put it down. I had one photo shoot I wanted to do while we were there; take a photo of the beautiful ballerina on the back of the historic Isaac Theatre Royal, located in the centre of the earthquake devastated central city.

And the reason? Those that have been following my blog since the beginning will know of my love for a Tauranga street artist’s work. OD (aka Owen Dippie) is an amazing artist who has painted many works of art on industrial and business building walls around Mt Maunganui & Tauranga, along with New York, Melbourne & Auckland.

And this is another of his paintings, Owen was commissioned to paint the ballerina as part of Christchurch’s inaugural street art festival, his mural was painted as the ‘grand finale’ to the festival and has quickly turned into a loved and iconic piece of art.

I’m not too sure how long it will be on view as there is ground work happening on the cleared section in front of the mural. Eventually, I’m sure, a multi storied building will grow from this empty space. But as OD once said to me, when I lamented about one of his controversial pieces of art being painted over, “That’s the nature of street art, here one moment, gone the next”.

Here's my previous blog showing a number of OD's paintings- Girl With A Pearl Earring

We spent most of our time in Christchurch preparing the van and ourselves for winter; sending one of the diesel heaters away for repairs, changing the bedding from summer to winter, packing away summer clothing, airing out our winter clothes (and deciding we needed more) and sending away any unused gear to our storage shed back in Tauranga. Generally having a good spring clean albeit at the wrong time of the year.

We did spend quite a bit of time getting frustrated driving on the roads; we both commented on how busy the city was and how long it took to drive anywhere. The roads are very crowded and there are still a lot of road works, even on the outskirts, along with a lot of rebuilding and new buildings taking shape everywhere. Christchurch is certainly the city of traffic cones; over 100,000 apparently.

It wasn’t long before we were both keen to hit the road again and leave the city chaos behind; so keen in fact, we left 3 days before we had originally planned.

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Before leaving Tauranga I had one particular photo I wanted to shoot; Girl with a Pearl Earring, a two storey replica of the famous 17th century painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. This is the first of 15 murals to be completed around central Tauranga by the very talented artist Owen Dippie or OD as he prefers to be known.

I've been following the work of OD for a number of years & have taken many photos of his amazing street art. He is a regular visitor to New York, Melbourne & Auckland where his work adorns many buildings, both legitimately & not so. As is the case with a lot of street art or graffiti as it can sometimes be known, one day it's there, the next it's gone. The work below only lasted a matter of weeks before it was painted over.

My all time favourite piece of art by OD is a replica of the legendary portrait of Ina Te Papatahi, of Nga Puhi (tribe), painted by Charles Goldie in 1902. C F Goldie was a well-known New Zealand artist, famous for his portrayal of Maori dignitaries.

Here's a selection of some of OD's work located around Tauranga & Mt Maunganui-

Michael & Elvis

Notorious B.I.G. from OD's 'Respect for The Dead' series

Princess Di

Johnny Cash

Albert Einstein

 

"Justice League" after Alex Ross

The second of the 15 works of art that will grace Tauranga by the end of summer. I'm disappointed I won't be able to follow the progress but I'll be looking forward to visiting so I can catch up on the new art works.

Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam