Painting Queenstown in a different light

Queenstown - New Zealand’s adventure capital - is being painted in a different light with a new soft tourism experience that combines art and the outdoors, and gives visitors something special to take home.

New Zealand contemporary artist Alice Blackley, an accomplished painter, long distance walker and passionate local, has set up Art Adventures - a business that adds a new perspective to tourism while supporting local artists.

Blackley has combined her talents and enthusiasm in a version of the internationally popular painting holidays that provide an alternative to cooking schools and cycling tours.

Soft adventure
Art Adventures was inspired by the dramatic landscapes of the Queenstown region and a desire to offer a softer option to the iconic local adventures of bungy jumping, sky diving and extreme snow sports.

The experience is aimed at people who enjoy a reason for being in a specific location and a new way to feel they have seen and engaged with the landscape, as well as those looking for a fulfilling and creative experience, says Blackley.

Restricted to small groups of clients, the art experience is tinged with luxury from transport to food and wine, and takes visitors to exclusive locations in and around the dramatic Lake Wakatipu - Queenstown region.

Fine arts experience
A well established artist in her own right, with 30 years as a painter and an M.A in Fine Arts from London, Blackley has assembled a team of local tutors to support all levels of artistic experience and cater for media preferences such as acrylics, watercolours and oils.

The professional tutors all live in Queenstown and therefore understand the region’s dramatic light and constantly changing conditions.

Experiences are customised according to the participants and can either include a one-day trail of walking and sketching or a multi-day (two to four day) excursion visiting different locations. Daily destinations are guided by client preference and weather conditions.

Costs include transport, art materials, gourmet refreshments served on location, and a glass of wine at the end of day debrief before guests are returned to their hotel in time for dinner. Each participant leaves with their best piece of work framed and ready to hang at home.

High country landforms
Blackley, originally from Tauranga in the North Island, says she has fallen in love with the spectacular high country landforms of the South Island - which she has observed at first hand.

As well as painting, fulfilling commissions and exhibiting in New Zealand and overseas, Blackley is also a habitual traveller having completed a number of long solo walks across remote stations and national parks, with just her tent, rucksack and travelling watercolour kit for company.

She says her new venture is born of her love of the outdoors and art, and the desire to show visitors exclusive off-the-beaten-path locations.

Participants can choose from easily accessible places like Jack’s Point, Cromwell and Kawerau Gorge for their art excursion, or take a helicopter flight over some of New Zealand’s most dramatic and inspiring scenery into wild and remote back country.

Informal and relaxed
As well as immersion in the landscape and exclusive art tuition, the experience provides a good overview of the region and its award-winning wines and gourmet food.

Blackley says Art Adventures is a very informal and relaxed experience led by people who are passionate locals and want to share their special place with others.

Studio and art gallery tours are another option and these are tailor-made to suit a client’s interest in art - whether it’s landscape, contemporary, realism or sculpture.

The Queenstown region is home to a number of high profile artists and Art Adventures provides a unique opportunity to visit private studios and galleries, and meet a diverse group of local characters as well as purchase art work.
Appreciating environment
As well as appealing to overseas visitors keen for a creative experience and to gain an appreciation of the local environment, Art Adventures is also aimed at the domestic market.

"We feel it will appeal to anyone who wants adventure but not be pushed to the point of discomfort - people who want to be safe, informed and educated," says Blackley.

Interest has already come from women’s groups, WAGS who’ve come to Queenstown with their husbands and partners for golf and other sports events, and a variety of overseas tourists from throughout the world - though the experience has broad appeal.

Art Adventures is not restricted to the novice but also suitable for artists in their own right who can bring along their own tutor if preferred.

Background: Alice Blackley & Art Adventures
Art Adventures is the brainchild of New Zealand contemporary artist Alice Blackley who has been a full time artist for more than 20 years exhibiting at home and overseas.

Blackley attended Elam Art School at Auckland University as a mature student, and completed a post graduate Fine Arts degree at prestigious Goldsmiths College in London.

After several years of travel, Blackley returned to New Zealand and built a studio on her parents’ farm on the Papamoa Hills in the Bay of Plenty.

Blackley says her work, by this stage, had developed into solo walks across vast areas of the South Island, and it was her love of the high country and sense of isolation that first lured her to Queenstown in 2005.

Blackley describes herself as an inveterate traveller with an oeuvre connected by an underpinning love of landscape and a quest for personal discovery and spiritualism.

She moves between an array of art genre: installation, performance, realism, abstraction and post modernism - and shows added versatility as she crosses mediums in particular oil, pastel, watercolour and acrylic.

It was a shared enthusiasm for the outdoors and living a creative life that led Blackley to establish Art Adventures.