Doggone, he's a canine hit

KELLY HODEL/Waikato Times

STYLEMEISTER: Ngaire Stone, director of the Auckland Lonely Dog Gallery, and Sutherland Burt admire a Weta Workshop statue of Lonely Dog.

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There's a new statue looking out over Victoria St and it's an image people might be seeing much more of in the future.

Lonely Dog, conceived by artist Ivan Clarke, of Queenstown, already has aficionados in the United States.

Clarke said he had spent most of his artistic career painting landscapes but, seven years ago, began "horsing around with a paintbrush" after getting home from a holiday.

"We had dropped the dog at the boarding kennels and when we came back we joked about what he got up to while we were away," the artist said.

He painted a scene with a few dogs in human poses, then left it against the wall of his studio.

Two years later, when a friend from the US with connections in the entertainment industry stumbled over the painting, Clarke was persuaded he might be on to something.

With encouragement from his friend, Clarke created a world and story about Lonely Dog which appeals to both children and adults.

Then, in a significant step for the Lonely Dog enterprise, Weta Workshop's Richard Taylor showed interest in the concept and started making bronze statues of some of Clarke's Lonely Dog characters.

Suddenly Clarke was being faxed by US production companies looking to get their foot in the door.

After "taking a deep breath and a step back", Clarke invited some experienced people to join him in a venture he's called Lonely Dog International.

Now the team's in talks with Warner Brothers and it looks as though production of the film might start at the end of next year, rather than in five years' time as Clarke first thought.

"If you said 10 years ago `you should paint dogs wearing bandanas and raincoats', I'd have laughed," Clarke said. "It's been a huge surprise to me."

A range of Lonely Dog paintings, statues, books and memorabilia are now on show at 236 Victoria St, the first stop on a regional roadshow around the country.

"It's very likely it'll be a household name in the future ... why should we not travel it around and let people see it," Clarke said.

The Lonely Dog exhibition closes July 3.

- © Fairfax NZ News