Sue Quirk, Head of People, Safety and Culture at Te Papa.
An artist that has inspired me is Grahame Sydney.
Grahame is a well-known NZ artist who lives and paints mostly in the Maniototo, Central Otago he has also travelled twice to Antarctica where I have also visited.
The connection to me and Grahame's art is my family came from the Maniototo. My grandparents lived in Ranfurly and I strongly feel my Turangawaewae to that whenua | land. I spent a lot of time in Ranfurly during the 1970s and we had many happy holidays travelling around the district experiencing that dry heat or cold and vast wide open landscapes with dramatic mountain and hilly landscapes with incredible night skies. Whenever I want to imagine myself back in the Maniototo, I just need to look at one of Grahame's paintings or books.
The Maniototo has extremes of weather - often the hottest and coldest places in NZ and the paintings reflect and capture the environment - you feel like you are there - the painting draws you.
From an early age we always had a print copy of Wedderburn (1975) station in our house in Dunedin and I have the print of Crossroads (2020) and a number of Grahame's books.
