Community invited to come in and paint

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By Julia Wade

Following the success of last years community art project, Mangawhai residents and visitors are once again invited to come together and merge their imaginations for another united artwork. 

Due to the popularity of Project Stingray in April 2017, which celebrated Mangawhai’s iconic stingray and is now mounted on the exterior wall of Mangawhai Artists Gallery, creator and coordinator, multi-talented local artist Rosina Kamphuis, has organised another thought-provoking art event, this time based on the areas natural environment. 

She says the ‘new concept sprung to my mind’ after receiving requests for more collaborative artworks by the Mangawhai community. 

“It’s time to celebrate our native bush and the flora and fauna that inhabit it,” she says. “Magical Mangawhai Goes Bush! One Moonlit Night… is a fantastic native bush scene that is sheer magic. We will then turn it into an exhibition with a wow factor, for everybody to enjoy.”

Deputy mayor Peter Wethey opened the Mangawhai Artists Gallery doors to the public on April 20, inviting people to ‘drop in and paint’ on a variety of nature-made media including stones, real bush materials and trees as well as cloth banners. 

Art work will then be collated into a spectacular installation bathed in the night sky inside the Mangawhai Artists Gallery by Rosina and her artist team, to be unveiled by mayor Jason Smith on May 5.

Rosina says the event is an opportunity for people in the community of all ages to paint, talk and have fun together. 

“My vision for this project is to inspire each other and raise awareness of our native bush heritage… to enjoy and explore the arts and create some of our own magic on a variety of very different ‘canvasses’, to get to make the art which we had always wanted to do but perhaps never had the chance.”

Magical Mangawhai Goes Bush! One Moonlit Night… is on now, everyday from 10am-3pm at Mangawhai Artists Gallery, 45 Moir Road, The Village, April 20 - May 3. For more information view mangawhaiartists.co.nz.


Artist and brainchild behind Mangawhai’s community art projects, Rosina Kamphuis, prepping some of the natural canvasses ready for the community’s creative magic. – PHOTO/ SUPPLIED

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