Grahame Sydney, the artist best known for his landscape paintings of Central Otago, has been knighted for services to art.
Throughout Sydney’s five-decade-long art career, his exhibitions have attracted record crowds.
His works are represented in the collections of all New Zealand’s major galleries and in private collections both nationally and internationally.
The artist believes his knighthood is “recognition of the extent to which Central Otago is loved by so many”.
“I’ve been a lucky one really to be one of those who have given that affection for this place and this region a permanent form,” he said.
“Not deliberately, I didn’t set about doing that - I was doing it purely for myself, but it seems to have meant something to quite a few others.”
He says while the knighthood is an affirmation of his work, more than anything he thinks the honour is acknowledgement of “how important the arts are”.
“I’m one small operator in a wide field of arts and I think when these sorts of awards get given to people who are practitioners in whatever form, it’s a reinforcement of the fact that those things matter to a lot of New Zealander’s lives,” he said.
Sydney works across mediums including oil painting, watercolour, egg tempera, lithographs, etching and photography.
In creating his paintings, he says he trusts his own instincts "like mad".
“Paintings arrive through a whole series of filters that are entirely instinctual. I learned long ago that the most important thing to teach anyone is to trust their own instinct – it’s the one voice that no one else can hear and interfere with,” he said.
“And if you believe in your own instinct, all sorts of things happen, when you ignore what others are saying to you but listen only to yourself.
“Instinct to me is the absolute bedrock of anything I do. And I don’t analyse it and I don’t know how or why it happens but I trust it like mad.”
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