Sandy’s long awaited solo exhibition

FREE Entry, donations welcomed
14th – 29th January 2023, 10am to 4pm
Opotiki Arts Society
13 King St, Opotiki.

Finally it’s here, don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to view Sandy’s extensive woodcarving magnum opus. With over 100 amazing works of art on display, you’ll certainly need time to view this thought provoking and entertaining exhibition.

Of his countless pieces, made over 40 years, he has only ever sold two but given many away to family and friends. He has won many awards at the National Woodskills Festival in Kawerau and has been a judge and guest carver.

Sandy came to New Zealand in 1963 from Scotland, with construction skills and an artistic gift, having attended the famous Rennie Mackintosh School of Art for a time in Glasgow.

Sandy highly values independent thinking and his woodcarving is the physical expression of his unique mind. Not content with the technical problem-solving required for each piece, he also likes to hide riddles within his work – partly, it seems, to amuse himself and partly to test the IQ of the people who come across his carvings.

Made possible with assistance and support from:

A woodcarving obsession re-ignited

Once in New Zealand Sandy travelled the country and worked from Manapouri to Tauranga. He decided on putting roots down upon visiting the beautiful Bay of Plenty as he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life anywhere else.

He still feels this way about his slice of paradise – an avocado orchard on the Paparoa Road peninsula looking out beyond Ohope to Whale Island and White Island – and challenges anyone to name a better place on the planet than this.

He only went back to Scotland twice in his life as he preferred to live in the warmer climate and had married a local Kiwi to cement the lifestyle.

His greatest physical challenge, a bung leg, knocked his trajectory off course, to line up instead with his greatest pleasure – woodcarving. After an injury and having a surgical mishap in his early 40s and consequently losing the use of his leg for some time, Sandy was asked by his doctor whether he had any hobbies.

Racking his brain (at the time, he didn’t think he had any hobbies), he remembered he used to like whittling but was fairly sure his house-proud wife, Marianne, would not appreciate chips of wood all over her living room floor. However, he mentioned it to her, and she immediately suggested covering the floor in old bedsheets to catch the shavings. His woodcarving obsession was re-ignited.

These days his art is still a reflection of his busy mind, and he seems particularly interested in perspectives: the fact that the way we experience our lives depends very much on our vantage point. His historical pieces suggest that this battle of perception has been around for a long time.

His latest piece is a scene from “The Man of La Mancha”, a story inspired by Don Quixote and set in the late 16th Century, about a man who gets into a fight with windmills after mistaking them for the enemy – and consequently receives a beating.

This story seems to resonate with Sandy as an allegory for life: your experience of life reflects the meanings you attach to it – spend your life picking fights with windmills and you can expect to have a difficult time of things.