Ashhurst artist Graham Christensen's exhibition Rural Life is on at the Coach House Museum in Feilding until February 28. Photo / Judith Lacy
Ashhurst artist Graham Christensen's exhibition Rural Life is on at the Coach House Museum in Feilding until February 28. Photo / Judith Lacy
Graham Christensen’s exhibition Rural Life at the Coach House Museum in Feilding is a lead-up to the town’s 150th anniversary celebrations in March.
The farmer is silhouetted while the rising sun catches the backs of his sheep. They will soon lose their wool.
Captured on canvas are the creases of the farmer’s trousers as one leg rests on the bar’s foot rail.
Ashhurst artist Graham Christensen says painting teaches you observational skills: the colours of the light, where clothing creases, and that grass is not one shade of green.
He has been painting for about 12 years, but before that he had no interest in picking up a paintbrush.
Living on the Gold Coast, Christensen and his wife Sue were talking about retirement. Sue said Graham was not going to be hanging around the house all day.
So in his early 60s, he went to some art classes and, because of the encouragement from some “brilliant tutors”, decided it was for him.
Christensen says he gets so much enjoyment from painting and becomes absorbed in what he is doing. He feels peaceful when he is painting tranquil rural scenes.
While picking up a canvas is relatively new for Christensen, the rural scenes he captures are not. He has a varied rural background and a life-long love of farming. He says he can feel what he is painting as he has experienced it.
His first job was on Feilding Agricultural High School’s dairy farm during the school holidays. He also worked in a shearing gang as a school holiday job and can still smell the inside of a wool shed - the sheep, the sweety shearers - and hear the vibration of the handpieces.
He says his knowledge and experience of farming is why he decided to paint art with rural themes.
Retired At Last shows Graham Christensen's ability to paint details like creases in trousers.
About 90 per cent of his paintings are done using oils, the rest with acrylics. He prefers oils as he likes the way the paint flows and finds them easier to mix.
Born in Marton, Christensen did his schooling in Feilding and his parents were members of the Feilding and District Art Society, as is he.
After leaving Feilding High, he worked on farms, then did a diploma in agriculture at Lincoln University.
He then worked in animal breeding research for the Ministry of Agriculture and spent a year living on Mana Island, near Wellington, managing the sheep breeding programme there.
Christensen later worked at Massey University finding on-farm work experience placements for agriculture, horticulture and vet students.
He also farmed deer at Rongotea for about 25 years.
Then he and Sue decided they needed an adventure and bought a holiday business on the Gold Coast. They lived there for about 12 years before deciding to move back to Manawatū to be near their family.
The couple bought a 12ha farm between Whakarongo and Ashhurst. The old hay barn had been converted into accommodation, and Christensen and his daughter Natasha Christensen have their studios there.
Christensen says he has enough land that he can put his overalls and boots on in the morning to say he is a farmer, but if it’s wet, he doesn’t have to. He’ll check on his Angus cattle and have a chat with them.
He has a soft spot for the Manawatū Rural Support Service and will donate the money he receives from the sale of Let Them Out to the charity. It’s the fourth time he has done this, and he says the arrangement is also a way of promoting the service.
“It works; it’s ever so easy to do. They win by the promotion, plus a few dollars if someone buys it. I get some advertising from them.”
Manawatū Rural Support Service is a free and confidential social service that primarily works with people in their own homes, supporting them with life challenges.
His father managed the Feilding sale yards, and his saddler grandfather and great-grandfather also lived in Feilding.
Graham Christensen's painting Shall I Bid on These captures a big decision farmers make when buying stock.
The Rural Life exhibition runs until February 28. Viewing the exhibition is included in the entrance fee to the museum. The 28 paintings are all for sale.
Judith Lacy has been the editor of the Manawatū Guardian since December 2020. She graduated from journalism school in 2001, and this is her second role editing a community paper.
