Australian-raised art lover Michael Nock intends recruiting top international and Kiwi artists to stay and produce art works at a Lower Shotover property he has bought for the purpose.
It will be an extension of an artist-in-residence programme he started in Hong Kong 2½ years ago.
His preference is for the artists-in-residence to be painters, but he is doing up space at the back of the four-bedroom house that would suit printmakers, he says.
Mr Nock (60) said a board of artists would choose who would come but he also had his own connections.
He sits on the board of the distinguished California Institute of the Arts, in the US, where he gained bachelor and master of fine arts degrees.
"I'd like to create an environment where there's some really great artists coming through and we can introduce them to some great Kiwi artists and try to raise the bar in terms of perhaps some of the art that we're seeing down here.''
As with his Hong Kong programme, Mr Nock said he expected visiting artists would hold a public exhibition of works they produce during their residency.
Mr Nock said he was overawed when he saw the Lower Shotover property, overlooking the river, early this year.
Stunned by its mature garden, he's named it Giverny after the magnificent garden built in France by impressionist painter Claude Monet.
Mr Nock was equally attracted by a large toolshed which he is converting into an artist's studio before starting his programme in about February.
He rediscovered New Zealand last year, on a trip with one of his daughters - "I decided that with the world being the state that it's in, New Zealand was actually looking pretty good''.
He ended up buying a massive, 890sq m home overlooking Lake Hayes.
"I've lived 36 years in Hong Kong, and the idea of being able to get away from the noise and the crowds and just come down here and pick up a paint brush and start painting, appealed to me greatly.''
-By Philip Chandler
