Antique bottle collector, amateur historian, landscape gardener and painter Kevin Luff is exhibiting his work at Community Arts Centre. This is his first exhibition.
His paintings are watercolours — he calls them "interesting" — and they came about after an injury put him off work.
During that time he attended art classes through Balance Whanganui, the organisation committed to mental well-being through peer support. Kevin was inspired to take up the paintbrush.
His paintings represent various stages of his mental illness and his own efforts to rebalance his life.
They include personal, religious, social and environmental images and a desire to see a better world.
"I use watercolours like acrylics," he says. His paintings are mostly on paper and many are not for sale. He is now experimenting with acrylics and canvas, encouraged by Whanganui artist Pauline Allomes.
Along with his paintings, Kevin is including graphic examples of his research into postal service history, an interesting sideline to his art.
His knowledge is extensive and he has collated images and written text on large boards to illustrate his findings.
While the Community Arts Centre walls will be taken up with the research boards and his paintings, the centre of the gallery will be an installation piece of plants and historic bottles.
"It will be a big plant / bottle display," he says, and he has plenty of both to choose from.
"I'm going to put manuka trees in the centre and I'm going to hang tillandsias all over them." The manuka trees are attached to frames to hold them upright and his tillandsias, or air plants, are a passion of Kevin's.
"I'm also going to incorporate orchids, bromeliads, succulents — all sorts of plants."
Art, heritage and botany will be part of his debut exhibition.
