Artist Mark Braunias, right, in front of one of his paintings with art collector Chris Parkin. Photo: Parkin Drawing Prize
The award-winning New Zealand abstract artist Mark Braunias died on Tuesday.
Braunias, 69, was a prolific creator who experimented with line and bold colours across different mediums throughout an almost forty year career, winning the $25,000 Parkin Drawing Award and two Wallace Art awards.
His work is represented in Te Papa's collection and he exhibited extensively in New Zealand's most well known public and private galleries.
Braunias collapsed outside his house in Kawhia on Tuesday morning and later died at Waikato Hospital, according to his younger brother, the New Zealand Herald journalist Steve Braunias.
"He was a classic artist. He lived for making art. He painted obsessively and was fascinated his whole life by line and colour. He pursued that all his life."
Braunias was born in Tauranga in 1955. His talent was evident from a young age, an interest that likely came from their father, a house painter by trade who also painted landscapes, Steve said.
Braunias had a fascination with their father's business sign painted over the family garage in a semi circle using capital letters.
"Pretty early he started keeping large A3 hardcover diaries... full of writing in capital letters but they would also have drawings and this continued his whole life."
Braunias studied at Mt Maunganui College and later at Ilam School of Art in Christchurch in the 1980s, according to the obituary Steve wrote in the Herald.
One of Mark Braunias' artworks titled In Search of the Saccharine Underground. Photo: Parkin Drawing Prize
One of Mark's strongest supporters for the last 25 years was Jonathan Smart from Jonathan Smart Gallery in Christchurch. He called Braunias a well-known and successful New Zealand artist who was a warm person.
"He is known for making paintings that lean towards abstraction that are also deeply human."
Braunias liked to sell his work and "watch the joy of collectors' eyes light up, and hearts beat faster as they get a Mark Braunias", Smart said.
What turned out to be his last show ended a few weeks ago at Ann Parker Gallery in Whanganui. The gallery owner, Lorene Taurerewa, watched Braunias' work for years.
She was surprised such a well-known artist would accept an invitation to exhibit at a gallery that had only been open for 12 months.
"The thing that I really liked about him was he was quite diverse in his way of working. He was painting very bright colours. His works were very large as well as monochromatic works."
In recent years, Braunias experimented with quilt making and glass blowing while keeping with his abstract style.
"I saw him like a 12-year-old boy. Everything is interesting to him. He is the type of person to look under things, behind things, " said Taurerewa.
With four exhibitions this year, Braunias showed no signs of slowing down, said his brother Steve Braunias.
"More and more, he got more active."
Braunias was also a fixture of the community in Kawhia where there will likely be a memorial early next year, Steve Braunias said.
A funeral was planned for Monday in Mt Maunganui.
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