Don Driver at the Tauranga Art Gallery

Last Friday I was in Tauranga. Drove up there from New Plymouth, leaving at 11.30 am and arriving at a motel over the road from the Tauranga Art Gallery just before 5 and well in time for the opening. I drove up to Te Kuiti, turned right, looped over the north side of Rotorua. Tauranga, I am told, now has a larger population than Dunedin.

Don Driver was having a show in this new building. He lives in New Plymouth too but unfortunately was not well enough to attend the event.

There was also a selection of works from the BNZ art collection. Billy Apple spoke about the history of how this collection came about.

I liked the gallery. I saw it last when it was a handsome but empty BNZ building and the conversion had not yet begun. Many walls feel domestic in scale, and I particularly liked that and the donkey brown coloured walls too. The Drivers looked very relaxed on them I thought. It's an Aalto colour but I don't know the exact name although Richard Arlidge the director did, during the evening tell me but I've forgotten it I'm sorry. It's similar to the much loved colour Diesel. Much loved in New Plymouth at least.

Ansel Adams used Forest Green and a Donkey Brown for the walls he exhibited on. I don't think that photography is particularly enhanced by the white wall.

It was an excellent evening.

I'm glad that I was there.