The Star: April 18, 2024
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Thursday <strong>April</strong> <strong>18</strong> <strong>2024</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong><br />
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
NEWS 21<br />
to rugged mountain landscapes<br />
“Once you’re familiar with an<br />
area and understand the colour<br />
temperature, and you’re familiar<br />
with which scenes are quite iconic<br />
you know what to look for,” he<br />
explained.<br />
So Klondyke Corner is a<br />
standout: “Most people have been<br />
there, they’ve had to stop the car<br />
and wait for others to cross the<br />
Bealey Bridge.”<br />
Fietje has experienced his own<br />
go-slow with that crossing point<br />
over the Waimakariri River on<br />
State Highway 73, not that he was<br />
caught in traffic.<br />
Depicting the single-lane bridge<br />
has been an ordeal, it took two<br />
attempts a combined 300 hours of<br />
trial and error.<br />
“I painted Bealey Bridge about<br />
five years ago, I got<br />
about 80 hours in<br />
and I had to throw<br />
it out, I just didn’t<br />
have the skill level.<br />
“I couldn’t figure<br />
it out and I didn’t<br />
have the time to<br />
solve the problems<br />
(he was teaching<br />
art in South Africa).<br />
<strong>The</strong> riverbed, I just<br />
couldn’t figure it<br />
out.”<br />
When he, wife<br />
Daniella and<br />
their boys Leo (4-½) and James<br />
(19 months) settled back in<br />
Christchurch, Fietje’s perseverance<br />
demanded a return to Bealey<br />
Bridge.<br />
“It wasn’t until 4 o’clock in the<br />
afternoon there was finally a really<br />
soft light source and you got all<br />
the shadows crossing the road. It<br />
ticked a few of the boxes I look for<br />
in a painting.<br />
“I really want people to feel<br />
they’re literally standing in front<br />
of that view and looking at that<br />
scene, really feeling that they’re<br />
there.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> only way you can do that<br />
is by upping the detail and trying<br />
to nail the colours as closely as<br />
possible.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s something about<br />
having a photograph enlarged,<br />
you’ve got all the pixels, but even<br />
if you’ve got a really, really good<br />
camera, you can still see it was<br />
SELF PORTRAIT: Sean<br />
Fietje, aged 10<br />
taken by a camera.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> camera doesn’t necessarily<br />
pick up all the colours and the<br />
shadows, all the greens of the<br />
leaves. It can only do so much.<br />
“I take a few notes when I’m<br />
out there, then to turn that scene<br />
into a painting where you’re using<br />
literally pure colour from a tube<br />
and then have that in front of you.<br />
It’s quite an amazing experience.<br />
It’s sort of hard to explain really.”<br />
A picture can be worth a<br />
thousand words. And several<br />
thousand dollars.<br />
His second version of Bealey<br />
Bridge sold for $22,000 last<br />
November to a Christchurch<br />
transport, distribution and storage<br />
company founder who had<br />
travelled the route hundreds of<br />
times.<br />
Bealey Bridge<br />
took 250 hours<br />
to produce, the<br />
troublesome<br />
riverbed was<br />
repainted six<br />
times.<br />
“I started trying<br />
to paint every<br />
individual rock<br />
and that wasn’t<br />
working,” Fietje<br />
admitted.<br />
“I did the same<br />
pattern right<br />
across and then I realised the<br />
pattern changes between the right<br />
and left, I figured it out.”<br />
Fietje, who has never taken<br />
an art class as a student, is still<br />
mastering landscapes, though he<br />
is pleased with his development<br />
since painting his fellow teacher’s<br />
farm and equipment.<br />
“Over years and years of looking<br />
at landscapes through the lens of<br />
an artist you start to understand<br />
how to create certain effects. I<br />
know how to use tone now, to<br />
push things in the distance really,<br />
really far back,” he said.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> palette is also very limited<br />
now, I use five or six colours now,<br />
it used to be 15. I pretty much only<br />
use one green.”<br />
• Sean Fietje’s works will<br />
be exhibited at Windsor<br />
Gallery on St Asaph St,<br />
Phillipstown from May 4-5.<br />
NOT A BRIDGE TOO FAR: Sean Fietje finally completed a portrayal of the Bealey Bridge at<br />
the second attempt.<br />
COMPLETE STOP: Sean Fietje recently finished his realistic interpretation of Arthur’s Pass<br />
railway station.<br />
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