The disappearing city . . .

FOR decades, Graeme Mudge’s annual “at home” exhibition has been a chance to catch up on the changing face of Gisborne, the artist’s determination to record in watercolour the changes to the city’s buildings creating an invaluable record.
But this year, he has depicted change wrought by more than the usual fire, earthquake, or the intervention of inconsiderate developers.
This year he reveals how nature — with the help of man — has created a city of “vanishing facades”, the culprits being the palm trees planted in the city centre just over a decade ago.
In this weekend’s exhibition, Mudge displays paintings he made of the streetscape just after the trees went in, their nubby splashes of green a contrast to the newly-installed cobbled footpaths the city’s managers were so proud of.
In more recent works, however, the palms have multiplied in size, the spread of their fronds obscuring fine Edwardian facades.
But while the artist admits that the trees now dominate the city centre, he won’t hear a bad word against them.
“Gisborne is now associated with these lines of trees and it’s just something new for people to get their heads around.”
In any case, he believes that not many people used to look up at the facades he has painted for so many years, so he says the palms do a service to the buildings in the way that they draw the eye upwards.
And he’s looking forward to seeing what happens when they get even bigger . . . “that’s going to be interesting”.
Meanwhile, the city’s more dignified frontages (albeit somewhat obscured) are not the only facades Mudge has been preoccupied with painting this year. A couple of surfaces around town have been brightened up with his distinctive public art murals — the working drawings of which are included in this week’s show. And even the façade of wife Lisette has not managed to escape his scrutiny . . . the portrait he painted to mark her 75th birthday is most certainly not for sale, but it still retains a central role in the exhibition.
Hers is one of two richly-textured portraits — the other being of a model in “f***-me” boots — that complement the around 40 framed and up to 100 unframed watercolours on display, showcasing the region’s garden, river, beach and city scapes.
Outside, he has set up a semi-circle of easels upon which to show the ongoing series of abstract oils he has been developing for more than a dozen years.
And students home from university for the holidays have been busy in the garden, oiling the organic-contoured sculptures Mudge hews from hefty totara.
Together, the pieces represent a frenzied year of work but there is no rest for the artist yet.
He won’t be in Gisborne for his 80th birthday in April of next year, deciding instead to spend it tramping around Central Otago, the region of his birth.
By September, though, he will have completed some ambitious new works for an 80th birthday show being hosted by Tairawhiti Museum. He will, of course, hold a 2012 “at home” show. And he’s plotting another major show for the following year to mark the 50th anniversary of his arrival in Gisborne.
■ Graeme Mudge’s annual at-home exhibition will be open at 157 Ormond Road tomorrow and Saturday, from 9am until dark.