Artist pushes boat out with $1m artworks

Napier artist Gerard Smith has completed a million-dollar project – a unique pair of paintings featuring gold, silver and hundreds of diamonds.

"I don't know anyone else, anywhere, who is doing this," he said yesterday.

Commissioned by an anonymous private collector, the paintings illustrate Falmouth oyster boats plying their trade at Cornwall's Fal River estuary. Smith, a jeweller by trade, saw them during a three-year spell in Britain and France.

The first of the paintings, Oyster Catchers, was completed last year and now Smith is preparing to put that and his new Wind Jammer piece on display at his Glisten Jewellery studio next Monday.

Each work is valued at more than $500,000. "This is one of the most expensive commissions ever undertaken by a New Zealand artist," he said.

The metre-wide Wind Jammer includes 800 diamonds with a total weight of 40 carats. "Cut gem-quality diamonds are used to bring brilliance and scintillation to the work that only diamonds can provide." The work also includes 18-carat gold, sterling silver, platinum and oil paint.

While the works may appear lavish, they also reflect a care for the environment.

Smith likes the oyster boats because they use sails, not motors, and catch only sustainable amounts of oysters.

He bought the diamonds through Kimberley Process suppliers, which guarantees that they are not "blood diamonds", which are mined in conflict zones.

Eighty per cent of the gold and platinum is recycled, and all the silver has been recycled or recovered from used X-ray and silver nitrate film plates.

"This work is intended to showcase the importance of sustainable mining, recycling and the Kimberley Process."

He estimates it took the equivalent of a year of fulltime work to complete the pair.

- © Fairfax NZ News