WHERE THE ART IS: Czech artist Ludek Adamek in the Back River Rd shed which so far serves as his family's home. PHOTO/PETER DE GRAAF
WHERE THE ART IS: Czech artist Ludek Adamek in the Back River Rd shed which so far serves as his family's home. PHOTO/PETER DE GRAAF
A CZECH ARTIST has given up fame and a steady stream of commissions in his homeland for a new life in the Far North bush.
Ludek Adamek, a prolific artist who works mainly in stained glass and bronze, is starting again in a strange land where no one knows his work and where he doesn't know the language.
Mr Adamek and his wife Magda, a nurse, moved to a 50ha bush property on Back River Rd, near Mangonui, last year. They are living off the grid in a shed which will become his studio once they build their house.
The couple moved to New Zealand to be close to their only child, Tomas, and his partner. Their son works as a programmer in Auckland.
Mr Adamek says the move was motivated partly by curiosity and a desire to see if anyone in New Zealand would be interested in his art.
"It is difficult but I like it. I could create anywhere," he says in Czech.
He has found new sources of inspiration, especially in Maori tattoos, and new materials, such as nikau palm fronds. The bush outside his shed is his art supplies warehouse, he jokes.
Mrs Adamek says they enjoy the quieter, simpler life New Zealand offers.
Living standards in the Czech Republic, the western half of what used to be communist Czechoslovakia, have improved enormously since the revolution of 1989 but people have also become much busier, more materialistic and often less satisfied, she says.
Their friends couldn't understand why at their age - both are in their late 50s - they would go to a new country and start again from scratch.
In the Czech Republic, Mr Adamek often worked on commission, creating custom-made windows, lamps and tables. He worked for new home owners, architects, fancy hotels in Prague, churches and even a brewery.
Half his life's work came with him to New Zealand. He wanted to bring it all but it didn't fit in the container; as it was, they had to leave their furniture behind.
When Mr Adamek was growing up in Moravia, the eastern half of the Czech lands, pursuing a career in art was impossible. He trained as a foundryman instead, making things like steel plates for bulldozer tracks. He made art in his free time, using whatever materials he could lay his hands on.
Everything was in short supply then - Czechs had to queue even for basics such as toilet paper and sanitary pads - and, because he was not a member of the government-approved Union of Artists, he couldn't buy art supplies.
He improvised by painting on roofing paper, drawing on the back of propaganda posters and making his own paper from old newspapers.
After the revolution, he was finally able to work for himself, first as a welder and from 1996 as a full-time artist.
The couple have no regrets about moving to the other end of the Earth but miss things like food and family, while Mrs Adamek - who used to own an aged healthcare facility - misses working.
Their main struggle so far is the language. They take lessons in Kerikeri once a week but need to be immersed in English to have any hope of mastering it.
Ludek Adamek with one of his nikau creations. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Such frustrations are offset, however, by the many things they enjoy, such as the lack of formality or officious, unhelpful bureaucrats.
Mrs Adamek says in Northland she can go to the supermarket in bare feet. If she tried that in the Czech Republic, she wouldn't even be served.
Mr Adamek says he is amazed by Northlanders' willingness to stop and chat. Every time he goes to the supermarket in Kaitaia, the checkout operator insists on asking where he's from or chats at length about the beauty of Prague, even if there's a queue of 20 people behind him.
In the Czech Republic that would lead to angry shouts to get a move on. In New Zealand no one seems to mind.
* A retrospective sample of Ludek Adamek's work is on show at Kaan Zamaan gallery in Kerikeri's Hobson Ave until February 10. The exhibition is called From Huzova to Peria, after the couple's village in North Moravia and the area where they now live. Works range from ballpoint drawings on communist propaganda posters to his New Zealand-made nikau creations. The hours are Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Sunday 9am-1pm.
