Artist Denise Nel with the original workings of intricately detailed, hand-drawn art maps of her adopted country, which she's digitally reproduced on fine-art paper. Photo / Dean Purcell
Artist Denise Nel with the original workings of intricately detailed, hand-drawn art maps of her adopted country, which she's digitally reproduced on fine-art paper. Photo / Dean Purcell
In the early 90s, Gary and I left South Africa to travel around the world together and New Zealand was en route. Oh my gosh, we fell in love with this amazing place instantly and thought hey, let's stay.
I love exploring and doing epic walks to get myself acquaintedwith the lie of the land. Every year, we do one of the Great Walks or a bike ride with the kids so they learn to treasure this country as much as we do.
In 2012 — the year I turned 50 — I began walking the Te Araroa trail. I did the first few sections by myself, from Cape Reinga to Taumarunui, then joined The Great New Zealand Trek [a multiple sclerosis fundraiser]. We finished the final stage in 2019, just before Covid shut everything down.
You can let adversity block you or you can embrace it. During lockdown it was amazing how much artwork was created. I've always got a million and one ideas floating around in my head, and it took all the "noise" away and gave me time to focus.
On my Te Araroa walks, part of the excitement was planning my route on the map and looking at all the contours. My interest in cartography is something I inherited from my lovely dad, and I'm lucky to have the ability to look at a flat map and visualise it in 3D.
When we arrived in 1993, our first home in Auckland had an amazing view of the city from the Waitākere Ranges and I drew it as a way of trying to navigate my way around a new environment. That was where it all started.
Years later, I did an illustrated map of [central] Auckland, but I couldn't keep up with all the roadworks and it kept getting outdated, so I put that on hold and decided that, as my lockdown project, I'd do the whole of New Zealand, using some creative licence but interpreting it as accurately as I can.
"People always see New Zealand as flat or in sections." Photo / Dean Purcell
The Geographic Atlas of New Zealand was my bible, plus a lot of topographical maps and road maps, trying to get the right amount of detail. You can't include every single mountain and curve in the road. I had such a great time going off on tangents, learning about different rock formations and how the glaciers were formed.
People always see New Zealand as flat or in sections. Now you can actually see the fault line running all the way up the South Island and how the alpine peaks compare to the glacial formations in Fiordland, the braided rivers and the flat farmland.
All the main centres and national parks are there, and there's an incredible amount of detail most people won't even see: the nīkau palms at the end of the Heaphy Track, the little information centre at Twizel, and Hamilton with its lovely bridges. With Dunedin, for example, it's a very stylised version. I just wanted to capture the essence of the architecture and, of course, I love the lighthouse and fishing boats down the coast.
There are no people — that becomes too cartoony — but I did add in a little glider heading out from Ōmarama. You can glide all the way up to Hawke's Bay. Apparently it's quite unusual in the world to be able to glide a mountain range that long.
As told to Joanna Wane
Auckland artist and graphic designer Denise Nel's exquisite hand-drawn 3D art maps of Aotearoa New Zealand are digitally reproduced in black ink on fine-art paper. Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island) and Te Waipounamu (the South Island) are available separately, framed or unframed, and there's a special Te Araroa edition that highlights the trail (nzmapart.co.nz).
