Banks Peninsula and Okains Bay

2010-12

The destructive Canterbury earthquakes forced Cordeaux’s departure from Christchurch in March 2011 after the loss of her house. For the next three years she lived in relative isolation in her small holiday cottage at Okains Bay on Banks Peninsula. The time was put to good use artistically.

Cordeaux continued with life-drawing classes, going to Christchurch once a week. She experimented with left-over oil and acrylic paint rescued from her Christchurch house, as well as new artists’ oils and enamel paint in vibrant colours to create a series of landscapes of Okains Bay. She regards these paintings “as a way to get over the trauma of the quakes … you work hard all your life and then you have to start over again. ”The quiet surroundings of hills, paddocks, the ocean, and birds singing in the garden, were unchanged and an escape from the devastation of beautiful Christchurch.

View portfolio...

Happiness, 2010,
acrylic on canvas,
403mm (H) x 508mm (W),
Artspot#10 – “Feast and Famine,”,
Akaroa Community Arts Council, Akaroa
(30 April -3 May 2010)

Summer Flowers, 2010,
acrylic on canvas,
765mm (H) x 381mm (W),
Artspot#10 – “Feast and Famine,”,
Akaroa Community Arts Council, Akaroa
(30 April -3 May 2010)

Surfeit of Daisies, 2010,
acrylic on canvas,
898mm (H) x 5798mm (W),
Artspot#10 – “Feast and Famine,”,
Akaroa Community Arts Council, Akaroa
(30 April -3 May 2010)