Transformers – More than Meet the Eye

Media Release

Transformers – More than Meet the Eye

EIT ideaschool student Tara Cooney is using her artistic skills to weave great yarns about Napier’s heritage.

The Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design student researched the city’s history to enter Napier’s Box Art competition, which was judged by the Napier City Council’s arts advisory panel. The challenge laid down by Napier Inner City Marketing was to beautify the variously-shaped transformer boxes downtown.

For years, the metal boxes have attracted taggers. Now they are “canvases” for Tara’s art, which takes an unravelling ball of wool as a motif to connect to the stories of the city’s past.

With the help of partner and fellow ideaschool student Jeff Robertson, who applies the second coat, she is progressively applying her designs on transformer units in the centre city and beyond.

She has painted the landmark Te Pania sculpture, for example, and poppies to remember those who fought in wars for the freedom we enjoy today.

Her latest efforts knit into Napier’s significant role in the development of the New Zealand wool industry – she has created images of the Old Napier Woollen Mill in Main Street and the Wool Exchange, a modernist building used for wool auctions but demolished to make way for the Te Pania Hotel on Marine Parade.

To inspire her image of the Wool Exchange, she sourced architect Guy Natusch’s original plans from the city council.

“I am very honoured to have this opportunity,” she says of the project, “and very excited to see the designs come to life on the boxes.”

Painting the transformers involves a surprising amount of work – four and a half hours for a smaller box and 14 for the biggest so far.

“It’s quite intense and physical too, as I often have to paint in an awkward position.”

Tara has also enjoyed other recent successes. Judges awarded her first and second placings in the Sacred Hill Best Wine Label Design competition open to ideaschool’s visual arts and design students. She also won second place in the people’s choice section.

The winning design is to be used on bottles of wine made by EIT students.

“I feel I am probably more design-oriented,” she says of her work, “but my options are very open at this point.”

Tara is in the first intake for ideaschool’s restructured degree, which is based on a project-based approach to learning.

“I think it is fantastic, and it will become more self-directed as we go along.”

As the mother of a six-year-old, Ava, her time management is up to that – “I think being a parent makes you more organised,” she points out with a smile.

ENDS

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