This month Gary Waldrom’s paintings are featured at Quay Gallery in Hastings Street Napier, where for 13 years his intriguing and beautifully painted works have been regularly featured. Sadly, Quay Gallery is closing for good on August 16 allowing its owner Richard Myers to retire, so this is an opportunity not to be missed.

Waldrom is a Waipawa man, born and bred, and has been painting for most of his life. With no formal art training his art has developed its own unique style. “He has proved himself to be a painter of significance and his paintings have strong appeal with clients waiting for his next works,” says Myers.

The images evoke phantoms from earlier times, seemingly real, momentarily here in their physical presence as the characters look at you boldly, lewdly, wearing a smile or smirk.

The subject matter is a shady collection of fairground characters, theatre people, performers, carnival characters,very colourful – some of his landscape scenes are from around his home district. Sometimes his figures can be quite scary, but there is no denying there is something special in his creations.

“Waldrom is not a prolific painter,” says Myers. “He works on 8-12 paintings simultaneously, and all of these can sometimes take him more than two years to complete. He has very high standards so occasionally a painting will evolve into several different formats before he is completely satisfied with the end result.”

Waldrom is a collectable or investment artist. His paintings are held in many collections, public and private including The Rutherford Trust Collection, the James Wallace Trust, Hawkes Bay Museum & Art Gallery, Wingnut Films, Helene Quilter Collection housed at Govett-Brewster and various art investment groups.

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