Ten years ago the McCahon House Trust in association with architect Graeme Burgess started to realise a dream to restore the little kauri-clad cottage in Titirangi where New Zealand’s foremost contemporary painter Colin McCahon and his family lived during the 1950s. 

Ten years ago the McCahon House Trust in association with architect Graeme Burgess started to realise a dream to restore the little kauri-clad cottage in Titirangi where New Zealand’s foremost contemporary painter Colin McCahon and his family lived during the 1950s. 

These ten years of effort has now been recognised with the restored McCahon House this month winning a national New Zealand Institute of Architects Award for heritage. 

The dream has now grown to include not only the sensitive restoration of the bach and its surrounding garden but also the building of a Pete Bossley designed apartment and studio next door. These are both now NZIA national award winning projects.

Since its launch in December 2006,  an alumni of eight artists have now had the chance to live and work in the natural and historic environment that surrounds the McCahon House.  (Artists have been Judy Millar, Andrew McLeod, James Robinson, Gavin Hipkins, Rohan Wealleans, Richard Lewer, Luise Fong and currently Eve Armstrong. Residents for the remainder of the year are Lisa Reihana and Ava Seymour) 

Eve Armstrong (pictured), whose art deals with the detritus of urban life, is the current artist in residence at the McCahon House and she has been surrounded by the very rural sights and sounds of the bush and the debris of the kauri in leaf fall. 

Eve works with found objects and ideas, and a large part of her practice involves the photographing of material in inorganic refuse collections. Her residency has been somewhat poorly timed as it has coincided with the demise of the curbside inorganic collection in Waitakere City, so she has been forced to make trips into central city suburbs to find material for her photo collages. Fortunately she has the use of a car donated by NZ Discount Car Rentals for the length of her stay. You will be able to see the work produced during her residency at a week long exhibition to be held at the residency studio itself from Sunday 31st May until Friday 5^th June. 

The Trust is now calling for applications from professional artists for residencies between March 2010 and March 2011. Applications are available on the website, www.mccahonhouse.org.nz 

The little cottage at 67 Otitori Bay Road Titirangi where New Zealand’s greatest contemporary painter lived and worked in the 1950s has now been visited by over 4,700 people since it opened two and a half years ago and is open on Wednesdays and the weekend between 10 and 2pm.  Eve’s residency exhibition will be held next door and will be open from 10am to 4pm from 31 May until 5 June.