Editorial: When art pokes the rebel within

Bryan Dew. Photo / Andrew Labett

Years ago I had the good fortune of interviewing the now late artist, Bryan Dew.

Born in Hastings in 1940, he decamped as a young man to London before landing in New York sometime in the late 60s. In 2005 he returned from the Big Apple to visit the Fruit Bowl for the first time in almost four decades. Given the length of his US sojourn, my immediate inference was he missed the Heretaunga Plains very little.

As it were, his uneasy view of "home" was evidenced in the satire he's best known for, including works he painted in the 60s of what to him were the awkward Kiwi conventions of marriage, beauty contests, 21sts and funerals.

He had this endearing habit of removing his glasses each time he spoke, only to put them back on when listening to my questions. It was as if his glasses enabled hearing, but impeded speech.

"So", I asked him, "after 40 years away, what's the most significant Kiwi culture shift you've noticed on return?"

His reply was plain but insightful: "The fact you can't just pop around to someone's house for a cup of tea anymore ... you have to ring ahead". Perhaps he was a little deflated at the irony of living four decades in 'the city that never sleeps' to return to a once sleepy Hawke's Bay now unable to take his call. At the weekend I had the good fortune of again viewing his best work on exhibit at the MTG. I'd forgotten how quietly seditious it is. Drawn particularly to one of his paintings, I pulled out my cellphone (I know, I know) to take a quick snap. But before I could, a kindly gallery volunteer materialised from the ether and warned that we weren't to take photos. Dew would have loved my graceless moment. For here was an unpaid pensioner, fiercely (but politely) protecting the posthumous worth of his intellectual property. Damn straight, it made my day.