About

Experience – Ian Anderson Artist Biography

The timeline

•  2024-26>  A major transition to Sheepworld Camp caretaker and redeloping my fine art and selling Hotshots Photography.
•  2022-24>  Personal development, study program upskilling in mental health,  marketing, entrepreneurship, and art skills.
•  2021>  Initiated private tutoring classes in the studio for creative thinking, multimedia, painting, and illustration.
•  2018-20> Continuing to create new ideas, merchandising, learning marketing, and employing others to enhance the vision. Ian joined the Mahurangi Artist Network and “Created to Thrive International”.
•  2017> Ian’s art was introduced to the streets of the world with Vida (Now ceased) and LaFesta Fashion
•  2016> After many anxious false starts, Ian plunged into full-time fine art as a professional with a small art gallery/studio in Warkworth, New Zealand, showcasing original art and reproductions.
•  2012> Major meltdown with mental health issues and a cathartic experience, started Ian’s journey to become a full-time fine artist, craftsman, illustrator, and photographer. For four years, he juggled photography, graphic design, painting, leather carving, and setting up a brand ID for the legacy of Ian Anderson Fine Art (IAFA). The full-time goal is painting, poetry, photography, illustration, leather art, book publishing, giftware, reproduction prints, and education.
•  Multi-award-winning wedding and portrait photography and oil painting in recognition of excellence in Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.
•  Conversant with creative technologies (Mac, Adobe, Microsoft, WordPress).
•  1994> Commercial and real estate photographer.
•  1992> Developing familiarity with trends in management thinking and still learning in the forever-changing business environment. 
•  Highly developed graphic, fine art, photography, leathercraft carving, illustration, and digital art skills. Graphic designer and illustrator.
•  1992> Managing Director of Legal Graffiti Design Ltd Inc., Hot Shots Creative Photography in Warkworth, New Zealand.
•  Moderately successful multi-award-winning wedding and portrait photographer.
•  1992> Business Networking International (BNI), Orewa and Warkworth, New Zealand. (Past President)
•  Warkworth Squash. (Past Committee Member)
•  Warkworth Business Association. (Past Committee Member)
•  1987> Solo, invite group, and retrospective exhibitions of paintings with works hanging in private, business, and government collections worldwide.
•  1983> Political and editorial cartoonist/illustrator for The Christchurch Press, Wellington Evening Post, and The Dominion.
•  1982> Successful advertising campaigns, art direction, and project management.
•  1981-the 1990s> Adult education tutor in creative illustration, portraiture, painting, photography, cartooning, and leatherwork in Christchurch, Auckland, and Warkworth, New Zealand.
•  1981> Ian flew back to New Zealand, a free man, or so he thought. He was free from drugs and alcohol abuse, but secretly still addicted to adultery, sexual grooming, and pornography. He became a youth leader and worked as a part-time handyman, leather craftsman, and commercial studio artist in Christchurch.
•  1979> With a conscious conviction, Ian flew back to Perth, fronting up to his past and paying his dues.
•  1976> The lights went on. After a trance (or vision/visit to heaven – no exact words to describe it and not drug-related!) and 2 parabolic dreams, Jesus’ spirit, without condemnation and in broad daylight, replayed his life in a supernatural movie. While sitting on a stolen backpack on the side of SH6 at Lake Hayes, New Zealand, Ian’s supernatural God encounter brought the peace and assurance he was searching for. God exposed all his hidden secrets, deceit, lies, thefts, guilt, shame, adultery, identity confusion, and the bitter loneliness that plagues a proud, self-righteous, angry, and stubborn heart.
•  1974> Ian moved to New Zealand, hiding for 7 years (or was it running scared from his past) with a police record and 2 warrants out for his arrest.
•  1970-76> 6 years in the hippy drug scene searching for peace and meaning in life. In and out of Eastern mysticism, cults, witchcraft, religions, philosophies, sexual pursuits, personal gurus, occult healing, growing dope, dealing drugs, struggling with sexual grooming, pornography, and the short-time roadie and part-time percussionist for the Afro-Rock band “Mother Lode”
•  1972> 1 year at Claremont Technical College (School of Art)
•  1970> Off the rails, artist-craftsman working primarily in leather and drug counter-culture folk art. Suicidal, murderous, antisocial, anti-materialism, anti-capitalism, and hungry for love in sexual exploits.
•  1968-70> Commercial advertising artist and neon designer, Perth, Western Australia.
•  1965-67> First Jobs. Junior clerk, storeman, postman, and lineman in training, Perth, Western Australia.

Passions

•  Windsurfing, tennis, cycling, swimming, gym, and paddle boarding keep his heart rate pumping.
•  Music – percussionist and learning guitarist.
•  Unashamed, Ian honours body, soul, and spirit to Jesus as the key to nirvana or spiritual peace through reconciliation with the universe’s creator.
•  Helping the underprivileged and despised ostracised of the world into a better slice of the pie through healing and discovering the keys to love, joy and peace.

Cathartic experience

“Artists don’t make money before they die – Being an artist is not a real job – Artists have hopeless business minds”!  These dream-stealer one-liners sowed purpose confusion, throwing Ian into years of mental health issues.

An angry protest rose: “Who had the right to tell me I can’t or won’t succeed with my gifts when I have to pay my way, like everyone else”?

Adding salt to my wound… supposedly, after I am dead, others will make a capital gain out of my poverty-inflicted paintings that served no real value while I was alive.

The pain of purposelessness and frustration drove me to humble myself and ask a then-unknown God for direction with a divine encounter, birthing a new passion and creative purpose.

I realised I was gifted to pursue my dream, and I won’t allow anyone to steal it.

Heaven valued my gifts as an artist, and amid that revelation, my star was born to rise.

Wake-up call

That revelation added fire in my belly to prove dream stealers wrong, and is recorded in a poetic story about the vision. Watch this space for a future reveal.

Visiting a Salvador Dali exhibition in Melbourne, Australia, in 2012 added further passion to my heart’s dream.

I realised I was missing out by undervaluing myself and what I could create. I wept depressed tears from a broken heart in front of a Rembrandt portrait.

My passion was further enhanced on the Yarra River over a cup of coffee and a conversation with my niece Jade, who blurted out this profound statement … “Just paint what you want to paint and let us decide”. One is never too old to learn, and I’m forever grateful. Thanx Jade.

I came back to New Zealand and coordinated my stock photography, old drawings, paintings, and leatherwork to frame up and display on gallery walls. Website one was built, which morphed into this site, and now you get to decide on my place in history.

You decide 

Remember … buy before I die. :-)

I want to pay for my headstone as a successful artist with my goal to leave a legacy to inspire the generations after me. (I don’t want the Government to foot the bill for a poor artist’s grave).

Ian Anderson Fine Art (IAFA) is a branded copyright, to capitalise in international financial markets.

A percentage of all sales from IAFA and LaFesta Fashion provides literacy programs via Vida manufacturers.

IAFA supports sponsorship and feeding programs in third-world countries through IAFA’s partnership programs. Every purchase adds to our sponsorship towards building better lives for all generations.

After Ian leaves the planet, his legacy will continue under the protection of “The Ian Anderson Fine Art International Charity Trust”.

Thanks all.

Ian.