KEY POINTS:
Take two rectangular canvases mounted on a wall, each covered with random streaks of Yves Klein blue, interspersed with daubs of orange. The two works are, to the naked eye, identical.
Imagine one is by a graduate of Elam who gained a masters degree in Europe. The second is by a self-taught enthusiast who, until a year ago, was emptying bedpans at a local hospital.
Which suddenly seems to have nuance and depth, investment potential and snob appeal? Which may actually be worth the $10,000 price tag?
While conventional wisdom might point to the first painting being Art with a capital A, collectors shouldn't be so quick to judge.
Just as the definition of "art" continues to expand, from watercolours to pickled sharks, so does the range of people who are creating that art. These days, lawyers and electricians and nurses are chucking in their day jobs, ignoring their glaring lack of classical training, and declaring themselves artists.
Many will see their careers peak at "$1 reserve!! Sensuous velvet nude" on Trade Me. But a surprising number of others are creating covetable, accomplished work that's being exhibited all over the world. And they're commanding prices that garret-dwelling young art graduates can only fantasise about.
One-time Gisborne meat inspector Glen Mills, 53, is now a fulltime artist painting complex and often slyly humorous takes on the relationship between Maori, Pakeha and the land. His work sells for up to $20,000 a pop. By any measure, he's a successful artist.
He's been a teacher, farm labourer, shearer, landscaper, outdoor activity worker, knitwear designer and Watties meat inspector. But he didn't take the traditional path and do a fine arts degree after school. Instead, real life came first.
"I had the top School C marks in the fifth form, but art as a career was simply not discussed in those days. So I ended up at teachers' college."
For the next 20 years Mills taught and worked outdoors and inspected meat, raised a family and built a house. And for all that time, in the snatched moments between his responsibilities to everyone else, he was creating dreams for himself in clay, glass, wax and oils.
An early supporter was Kiwi art legend Pat Hanly. "He really encouraged me. He tried to persuade me to be an artist fulltime, but I wasn't brave enough. It was the era of the hippy, when the struggling artist was the ideal. Tony Fomison, McCahon - they weren't really making money back then. And I had a mortgage to pay."
As an understated man from a reserved Kiwi background, Mills also couldn't see himself proclaiming: "I am an artist. This is what I do." Even though he was, and he did.
Then he fell off a water tank and a steel rod went through his jaw. Having recovered from that near-death experience, he was hit by a car. The resulting cumulative head injury left Mills, in his 40s, suffering a particularly cruel midlife crisis.
In constant pain, he spent hours trying to find some respite in the art galleries of Auckland. "I was forced to reconsider how I would, and could, live my life."
So he set up a boutique B&B at Wainui Beach, lived in Rarotonga for several years, and painted every day. Finally, to formalise his experience, he gained a postgraduate diploma in fine arts from Elam. He was 45.
"It would've been much easier to be a young, qualified artist who a gallery could take on, nurture and promote for the next 30 years," he concedes. "But I'm an apprentice of life, and I think my work is stronger for that. I've also been privileged to have the mentoring and support of senior New Zealand artists Carol Shepheard and John Pule. I wouldn't have been able to do any of this without them."
Auckland artist Richard Shanks' dramatic, ultra-realist landscapes are so compelling, they moved literary luminary Kevin Ireland to describe them as: "A haunting suggestion of the way time passes and memory endures. These are paintings of deep intensities, illuminating pleasures, high accomplishment and enduring value."
Not bad for an artist who didn't go to art school. He didn't even go to the sixth form. Shanks, 43, left school at 15 to become a hairdresser.
"My parents were very creative, and my grandmother taught me a lot about rendering light and space. I was one of those kids who was always drawing, but I was also a bit of a wild boy. Hairdressing seemed a rebellious, offhand way to escape school and run round in baggy pants, pretending I was David Bowie."
Now his canvases are so in demand there's a waiting list and each painting, which takes months to complete, reaches a five-figure sum.
Shanks is wary about talking too much about his background. He's all too aware of the judgments waiting to be heaped upon him.
"Being self-educated, one can have a fear of not doing things in the proper way. I try to counteract this by being really good at what I do."
And he is. After twenty years at the top of the hairdressing profession, he had many discerning, wealthy clients who liked what he did with a pair of scissors. They were just as impressed by his skills with a paintbrush, and began buying his art. He's now in the unique position of selling purely by word of mouth.
Several dealers have approached him, including one from Melbourne who was so determined to have his work she bought it outright.
"I'd be thrilled to be represented by a dealer, but the way I work means I just can't afford it," Shanks says. "Each painting takes so long, and I only complete a few each year."
Award-winning art directors Mike Davison and Wayne Pick combine careers in top advertising agencies with a passion for art.
Davison, 38, works four days a week as head of art at DDB. On Fridays, he paints.
His political perspectives on New Zealand culture are gaining a cult following here and in America. "I really wanted to go to art school," he says, "but my father insisted I earn a living."
Earning that living took him to New York for seven years in the advertising industry.
"I became interested in the street art there," says Davison. "I had ideas I wanted to express, I had a few artist friends, and they showed me the way. They inspired me to get a studio, and made me feel it was okay to create my own paintings."
Davison is upfront about the importance of marketing his work.
"I want my paintings on people's walls."
He acknowledges he's an outsider in the local art world, saying those who have gone to art school "move in a pack, talk the same language, make contacts that are invaluable for their success".
But his lack of formal training has its advantages, he says. "I'm more naive, freer, unburdened by history."
South African-born Wayne Pick, 38, is the creative director of Rapp Collins, DDB's direct marketing arm. He also decided to concentrate on a lucrative advertising career because he didn't think he could make a living as an artist.
Ten years ago he began painting seriously. Now he's in the Who's Who of British Art and his portraits of characters from his childhood are exhibited in New York and Miami, London and Ireland. They sell for thousands to private collectors and corporations.
He too is a big believer in marketing and happily embraces a populist approach.
"Whether the purists admit it or not, a large part of art is marketing. Look at Tracey Emin [one of the UK's most controversial modern artists]. She knew how to leverage her shitty background and give herself an angle," Pick says.
"Or Banksy [the subversive, anonymous British 'guerilla artist' collected by the likes of Brad Pitt] who sprayed one of his early pieces on the side of my apartment building in London. I was really annoyed at the graffiti. Now, of course, I wish I'd chiselled it out and kept every brick. Because, thanks partly to his cunning underground marketing, those bricks would be worth a fortune today."
Despite his commercially oriented pragmatism, Pick's work is enormously emotional. "It's so personal. I invest everything in each painting."
Dominic Feuchs runs Starkwhite in Karangahape Rd, Auckland, and represents some of the hottest names in contemporary art, including Peter Stichbury and the elusive et al.
Asked about his views on untrained artists, he uses rugby as an analogy.
"I view the visual arts like a sporting arena. For example, there are lots of excellent rugby players in this country. Most of those who play club rugby are never going to become All Blacks, but that doesn't mean that they aren't good at what they do. They are - they're simply operating at different levels."
Feuchs' artists are the Dan Carters of their world. He says he'll consider anyone, based on stringent criteria, but concedes: "What art school you went to is still key. Doing a fine arts degree provides a wonderful context for the work, crucial peer and mentor support, critical and theoretical tools, and contacts."
Very few have that special talent, he says. "The truly successful artists are the ones who aren't just gifted - they apply their gift. They work incredibly hard. And the line between commerce and art is blurring."
Which is where the self-taught artists have a chance, particularly when Feuchs' key advice to potential purchasers is "buy what you love".
"I have the utmost respect for anyone who's creating art and showing it in a public format," he says. "It's incredibly brave. They are declaring 'This is me at my very best; this is the best thing I can do'."
