Enlightened by France

MARTIN DE RUYTER

INSPIRED: Artist Brian Strong with a painting from his Contrasting Light exhibition at the Red Gallery.

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The length of French coastline between Cannes and Nice is a place where, early last century, great artists and thinkers went to find solace and relaxation. There was never any shortage of inspiration. Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse came to paint. Somerset Maugham and F Scott Fitzgerald came to write.

They were all spurred by a particular quality of light specific to that part of the world. In a certain wind, dust blows from North Africa down over the Mediterranean sea and a haze will come over the landscape. That haze gives the area a distinctive Riviera light. It also gives it a certain clarity in the Mediterranean blues.

New Zealand has distinctive lighting as well, but Nelson artist Brian Strong says it is darker and a little gloomier. "The best way to describe it is that in the Riviera the light seems to come from underneath whereas in New Zealand it comes from above. It is more intense here, the ultraviolets gives it that high contrast that you won't find there."

The contrast, however, hit Strong only after he returned from a 10-week trip last year to visit his son in Antibes, halfway between Cannes and Nice.

It is one of those places where it is nice to have a family member, especially one who works as a captain on a luxury cruise ship, but Strong is quick to point out that the Riviera is not all drowsy lunches and leisurely strolls.

He was working four to five hours a day, taking photos, sketching and painting watercolours. He likes to paint wherever he goes and Antibes was no different. Strong made notes of what he saw – the colours of the North African haze, the significance of buildings constructed in the 13th century, the way in which the ocean blue could be replicated in paint. All were dutifully observed because, in his art, all were significant.

"New Zealand's history comes from its land," Strong says, "but France's history comes from its buildings. There is a historical content behind my paintings."

In Strong's case, this explanation is quite literal. A landscape of New Zealand is superimposed over a faded copy of the Treaty of Waitangi. In Antibes, he found a 16th-century map of France that he used under a painting of a dusty castle.

Strong says there are elements in New Zealand that gives our landscape a broodier look than those in France. "But there is a political undertone that is within that as well."

Strong calls his landscapes "poetic visions". They are based on memory and drawings he makes on his travels around the country. The landscapes are national representations of New Zealand. In different areas of his pieces you can pick out the West Coast, the Bay of Islands, the Abel Tasman or the Marlborough Sounds. But they all seem to meld into one unifying vision.

"A lot of the intention is that people can recognise it as anywhere."

But, in France, the thing that struck Strong was the history and the country's longevity.

It is an inspiring place, he says, but not one where he could live. "I would be walking everywhere; it's not a place for driving. It's too hectic, too crazy."

Despite his reservations, he is going again next year for his grandson's second birthday. One small trip at a time is fine. In short bursts the Riviera is always going to be serene and always a little inspiring.

• Contrasting Light, by Brian Strong, until November 27.