"My first photo of it was in 2018 and it has changed a lot."
It's a blue wall, and when whoever it is needs to erase/cover graffiti or tagging, they use a blue, but not that particular blue. And sometimes not a blue at all.
"They'll paint over it, just enough to cover it, and with no thought about how it looks afterwards. Then the graffiti writer comes back, thinks, 'Brilliant', and does it again, and so it creates this dialogue about painting in public."
Kit never saw the graffiti writer and never saw the cover-up, but he saw the evolving result as a conversation about public space, colour, freedom of speech, vandalism and control.
Kit is from the Lake District, England, attended Art College in Yorkshire and went on to university in London to study Fine Art. Now, he and his partner Michelle have made their home in Castlecliff.
"What I didn't want to be is an abstract painter ... but abstraction is a sideways movement from the real world. You open up the paper these days and it's weirder and weirder, more and more abstract.
"For me, abstraction now is less about not the real world, it's just another look at the real world, in a way. So I ended up evolving into a painter that, when you look at the work initially it's completely abstract, but when you realise that a lot of the time I'm thinking about what I'm seeing out in the real world, but not replicating it because you can't get better than the stuff that's actually there."
Kit says his early canvases were the result of a process involving starting something, not liking it, covering it, carrying on, much like that graffiti / covering up dialogue he sees on walls around Whanganui.
"I started to realise that my work is kind of about not really being able to get what you are trying to do, sometimes. Then I started to work with that and enjoy it.
"Under these canvases are multiple works, but they are an attempt to get to this place. Sometimes I get there really quickly, say, in a week. Sometimes it takes three or four months."
The process sometimes involves the use of an orbital sander to take it right back to where he can add more layers.
Kit uses water-based acrylic, paint pens, fence/house paint and high-quality artist's paint. Kit points to a canvas leaning against the wall, ready to hang.
"There are sometimes half a dozen layers of paint that build up to get these tones."
He says you can't get those without going through the process.
"These aren't mistakes on mistakes on mistakes: they are attempts to get somewhere. Now I'm partially in control of the process."
Even over the course of the exhibition some of the canvases will change, giving rise to the exhibition title — Temporary Paintings.
The painting of Daisy Duck is not how it started, nor, probably, how it will end.
"I use blues, red ochres, a kind of faded yellow and black. That's kind of my palette."
He has been using these base colours for much of his painting career.
The Details
What: Kit Lawrence: Temporary Paintings
When: Until Saturday, April 23
Where: Whanganui Arts at The Centre, 19 Taupo Quay
An artist talk will be held on the final day of the exhibition, Saturday, April 23 (2-3pm).
