‘Contemplation’ by Michael Evans.

This show is significant in that it brings together a wide selection of Michael’s creative activity that spanned decades. In doing so the exhibition includes diverse media ranging from painting and drawing to pioneering television work from his years in broadcasting.

Virtually all of Michael’s adult life has been involved with the creative arts. Born in England, he started art school at the age of sixteen.

“It was full time for three years. My father was an artist who ran a signwriting and screen-painting business.”

Michael worked alongside his father on projects and commissions.

“At that time the ‘bread and butter’ work was signwriting. Scenery and set painting jobs were fairly limited, and any fine art sales were icing on the cake.”

On emigrating to New Zealand the father and son team continued painting, but Michael gained another artistic outlet when he became a professional stage actor with the New Zealand Players – and as a bonus he was also paid to paint the sets alongside his father. But times were changing, and with his art and theatre experience he was well placed to get into a newly emerging industry – television.

As part of A Life In Art, videos of two of Michael’s early television creations are on show.

“I did two television shows using my own artwork. In the 1960s it was black and white – later it moved to colour.”

In his studio he still has some of the original painted card images, one of which was framed for display.

“Created in conjunction with the former ‘Limbs’ dance company I produced around 30 paintings that were added to the scenes using ‘chroma-key’ [blue screen process].” 

He followed this with a colour show titled This Way Out.

Although both shows were technical successes and impressed viewers with their creativity, this was still very much the Country Calendar era in New Zealand Televison. Although praised for his work, he was told “stick to the ordinary shows Evans, we don’t want all this airy fairy stuff”.

However, he remained working in TV for many years, ending up in all sorts of strands of television including Maori and Pacific Island programming.

The majority of the work in this show is from “I guess ... mostly over a 20-year period”. The material on display covers a wide range of techniques, styles and media. In explaining his frequent forays into new artistic fields he pointed out that “an expert is someone who knows a great deal about very little. I aim to go in a different direction”.

There are works in pastel, charcoal, pen and ink, scroll pen with wash – some detailed, others painted in a loose, relaxed style.

The life-drawings for the show were all created at the local Catherine Mitchell Centre, where he often practised sketching quickly with “a free, open style”.   

Some of Michael’s more popular works were images of the Mediterranean, with titles such as Capri and Santorini. An abstract series he had tried earlier, based on spider webs “wasn’t madly popular so I didn’t persevere with that angle”, but the more realistic paintings of traditional homes and island villages “sold rather well”.

Inspired by travelling in the region, Michael “loved the architecture of the Greek Islands and Italy”. For these images, he again experimented with materials, creating “textured images” employing a special technique he and his father had used for set work.

“We used a material that used to be called ‘plastic’ – actually it’s a kind of malleable plaster that could be combed and textured onto board”. Michael used a cake icer to apply beads of the material, creating a layered built-up image that suited his depictions of whitewashed rustic stone buildings. Over this he applied paint, creating the final image, and then often added a finishing coat of varnish.

Examples of these and many other works from Michael Evans’ prolific career will be on display in this special exhibition.