Te Henga Sunset, an original screen print creation described by judges as "a genuine labour of love” has earned Onehunga-based Artrite Screen Printing the coveted 2023 Pride In Print Supreme Award in New Zealand. Catriona Mellows was named the BJ Ball Papers Print Apprentice of the Year.
Artrite MD Glenn Taylor with the Pride in Print Supreme Award
Te Henga Sunset also won the prestigious Specialty Products/Limited Edition & Fine Art Prints Category as well as Screen Process awards before an enthusiastic industry audience of over 500 celebrating Pride in Print's 50th anniversary at Auckland’s Cordis Hotel.
Artrite managing director Glenn Taylor described the accolade as overwhelming. “I’ve been in the industry a long time – I started as a 16-year-old, coming straight from school to Artrite – so to get this now is pretty special.”
Taylor said the Supreme Award win fully vindicated the company’s strategic decision to “stick with the knitting” in screen print versus other modes.
“An artist will come up to us with an original work, and our job is to break down that job into single layers and try to recreate that job exactly as the painting. Art is a big thing and we’re having to compete against a digital market. We’re always evolving and learning new things. We’re still finding better inks, better machinery, better techniques to achieve what digital can’t do – we’re trying to achieve a painting look, that people say ‘how is this done?’”
Te Henga Sunset
Taylor said artist Matt Payne was “with us for most of the process too, so it’s a real collaboration of him and us. We are privileged to work with so many talented artists from New Zealand and overseas and it’s just really opened up a good will for us – we love what we do, we have a passion for our craft. It never feels like a job!”
Pride In Print judges described the work as an “incredible example of true print craftsmanship and artistic collaboration."
“It required the hand-mixing of 33 colours and production of film layers, which the artist needed to sign off each time,” the judges said. “With colours prone to change during repeated screen pulls, only 30 could be completed at a time before a clean-up was required – with colours then needing to be remixed, film layers reproduced and artist sign off sought again.
“Taking three weeks and about 2000 hand pulls to complete, the result was an original screen print, produced with great detail and wonderful colour consistency over all areas. So many things can go wrong in all of those processes, yet it was so beautiful – we were blown away. This screenprint was a genuine labour of love.”
Catriona Mellows named Print Apprentice of the Year
BJ Ball Papers Print Apprentice of the Year Catriona Mellows with her boss, Display Associates manager Blair Symes
Display Associates head graphic designer Catriona Mellows was named BJ Ball Papers Print Apprentice of the Year at the 2023 Pride In Print Awards. Mellows had previously been named the joint Digital Print Apprentice of the Year.
“If you had told me six years ago, when I started my job as a ‘lacky’ that I would be up on stage, I wouldn’t believe you – not only that, but I won an award!” she told the crowd. “Thank you not only for this amazing honour, but for the career, for letting me earn a wage while learning so I could buy my first home with my partner, for igniting that creative spark in me that has made me the person I am today.
“Thank you to Display Associates for the huge risk you took with a 20-year-old whose only credentials where ‘she was good at art at high school’. Thank you so much, it has been incredible!”
Mellows described the Display Associates team as a family. “My boss, Blair Symes, took me onboard just on the word of his mother, Dorothy, who saw a creative spark in me. Dorothy started Display Associates in 1975, hand-painting signs and eventually moved into screen print. Nearly 50 years later, her son Blair is now running the business and screen-print is only a fraction of what we do.
“I feel like it’s not just me who has won this award but all of us, because everyone was only too willing to help me. Every Friday at 5pm we gather round the applicating table with a beer in hand and share ideas and, if we’re lucky, Dorothy will come down with cheese rolls!”
Looking ahead, Ms Mellows says she is excited to be continuing to grow and expand in her career.
“I started out as a general lacky and am now very proud to be the head graphic designer. I have the exiting opportunity to move from trainee to trainer as we have just hired a young girl out of high school. I hope she will follow in my footsteps and start her own apprenticeship very soon. I would be honoured to be able to coach and teach her through this and give her the same chance and opportunities my supervisor once gave me.
“I am also very excited to be starting the Diploma in Print Management and I hope to gain more insight into how running a print business works. My absolute dream would be to have my own print business where I could focus on designing and creating my own brand.”
Having worked with a number of designers over the past 30-plus, Display Associates manager Blair Symes says Mellows – who is also his firm’s first employee to complete an apprenticeship – has impressed with a constant positivity and maturity above her years.
“The sign and display industry, with the time constraints involved at times, can be a fair bit of pressure for results but she applies the same passion for the design whether she is working with a one-man tradie wanting a new logo for his little business or dealing with the chief executive of a company wanting to rebrand,” says Symes.
“Cat’s positivity – and alternative sense of humour – are a real boost for our company. She is currently training a new design cadet and doing a great job. Sharing her experience of her apprenticeship with the other staff has inspired another staff member to enquire about taking one on.”
Congratulating Mellows, PrintNZ chief executive Ruth Cobb emphasised that print remains a craft. “I get reminded of that every time we do our Print Apprentice of the Year interviews and they talk in such technical and passionate detail about their jobs,” said Cobbs.
Cobbs emphasised the need for print industry companies to commit to training, noting “we need to grow our own” in response to labour and skills shortages.She added that PrintNZ was also actively monitoring and adapting its approach to training requirements as those continued to evolve under Government direction.
Pride In Print 2023:
- 71 companies entered work
- 475 entries were made in total – up 30 on 2022
- 201 Gold Medals were awarded – up 40 on 2022 (including five in the Business Awards section)
- 78 Highly Commendeds were bestowed – down nine from 2022
