06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Inspiration home-grown for award-winning artist
Rod Eales shows off her award-winning work at the Dunedin Railway Station on Saturday. Her work will be on display until August 2 as part of the 149th Otago Arts Society annual awards show. Photo: Stephen Jaquiery
Flowers from her garden provided the inspiration for Otago Arts Society winner Rod Eales.
The Dunedin artist's piece, a painting of a yellow flower, won the Hughes Family Trust Award at the 149th annual Otago Art Society awards.
Ms Eales was delighted to win the award, not least because it was the first time she had entered this competition.
"I've been really pleased with the response so far."
She had always had an affinity with flowers.
"I've got a huge garden. So I opened my garden now and that's one of my flowers for my garden. It is just a straight flower [in the painting], but it's one of my favourites. You can pick it, it lives forever, and it's just a part of a great, huge body of flowers."
This particular painting took about two months to complete, and she said she was "less distracted" than she had been in the past.
Global warming and regeneration was also a recurring theme in her work, Ms Eales said.
"I paint in fast-drying oils, and so I can get back to painting pretty quickly, and I teach in my spare time in two months.
"Sometimes it's the weather and the light that holds me back. I can't paint on really dull days yet until I've got my light sorted."
Ms Eales said she had previously specialised in landscape painting, but now was "all in" on flowers.
"I plant flowers that I think I will put in my paintings. So the two are very, very much led. You can't separate the two now.
"I'm not going to go back to landscapes or back to anything. There's so much to do with flowers."
More than 180 entrants feature at this year's art society awards. The works will be on display at the Dunedin Railway Station until August 2.
