Daydream believer

JONTHAN CAMERON/Manawatu Standard

WATCHER: Former Palmerston North Girls' High student and artist Greer Townsend opens her first solo exhibition at the Taylor-Jensen Fine Arts gallery tonight.

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She is attracted to the human face, always on the search for the next person to draw. She is also fluent in two languages, studies children's writing, and is from Palmerston North.

MICHELLE DUFF speaks to Greer Townsend before tonight's opening of her exhibition Drift, Wander.

What is your background?

I went to Ilam [art school in Christchurch] and did a fine arts degree, majoring in printmaking. I graduated in 2001.

After that, I started teaching English in Wellington, and I moved to Japan and lived there for two years, and in France and then back to New Zealand.

So it's just in the past two years that I've got into art properly, after living in France. I'm doing a second degree in art history now, so I've been doing [this exhibition] in between all of that. But I've been thinking about it for a while.

How long have you been interested in art?

I've loved it since I was little. I was always obsessed with drawing and would ask for art supplies for Christmas. I've always done people, never anything else. I love watching people and observing people. I love catching people when they're daydreaming, when they're at the bus stop or whatever, and it always makes me wonder what they're thinking about.

When I went travelling, you can't speak the language, so I spent a little more time watching people, and guessing as opposed to knowing.

What inspired this exhibition?

When I was in Japan, I mainly did photography. I took thousands and thousands of photos. But in France, I got back into it. I think it was all the galleries I was seeing, the work of artists I had seen in art school and really loved – artists like Matisse and Kiki Smith – she does really beautiful drawings. And I saw a life works exhibition by Alberto Giacometti. That was really inspiring.

How many languages can you speak?

I speak French and Japanese. Spanish is next on my list. I did a children's writing course at Victoria University, and I'd like to write and illustrate kids' books – bilingual ones as well, because I was reading a lot of them when I was learning.

Being somewhere different teaches you a lot about your own culture, which is really interesting. Also, when you start travelling, it's really hard to stop. At home you know how everything goes, so it's not a challenge.

What is your artistic process?

I don't really like painting in acrylics or oils. I think that's because I like the immediacy of drawing and I like layers.

I like when you can see the history of the drawing on the drawing. The beautiful thing about this primed paper that I'm attracted to is you can really be rough with it, whereas on watercolour paper, you make a mark and can't change it. There's nothing to play around with.

What do you like about drawing people?

My friends think I'm turning into one of those crazy ladies, because when I walk around, I always see people I want to draw, or I just zone out when people are talking. You get addicted I think, to making the lines on somebody's face.

If you're travelling and walking around by yourself, you end up talking to a lot of people. It's interesting to draw them too, the people you meet along the way. People's stories always throw you.

* Drift, Wander is at Taylor-Jensen Fine Arts gallery until December 24.

- © Fairfax NZ News