Wanaka artist Stephen Martyn ‘Marty’ Welch believes everyone deserves a portrait, and his vision for a worldwide collection of portraits kicks off right here in Wanaka.

Marty was raised in the far North, growing up with a love of comics.

“The one day I walked into a toy store in Dargaville and there was a poster of a Barbarian dude by Frank Frazetta,” he said. “I fell in love with drawing from that day.”

He failed art at school, though, in a time when comics weren’t considered real art. Marty went on to join the army and would draw tattoo designs for his colleagues - and was sometimes disappointed with the tattooists’ rendering, recalling a ‘lone wolf’ that ended up looking “like a bloody hamster”.

Marty ended up in Auckland working in hospitality, and when he and wife Mandy’s second son, Scott, was born with the very rare Kabuki Make Up syndrome, “everything changed”.

“After the first year we’d spent all our savings and were living in the [Starship] hospital. It was a pretty horrible time,” Marty said.

A nurse who had noticed the couple fraying at the edges had a chat with Marty, discovered he liked to draw and encouraged him to spend time on his art. 

Marty started by drawing Scott in the incubator, and went from there. “The art and the people joined and it started making sense to me. Art is about people.” 

He was still working part-time, but also teaching himself how to paint. He bought himself kindergarten grade paints, mastered those and gradually moved on to oils. “I’ve never had a lesson, never taken a class.”

Marty became known for doing portraits of homeless and disabled people. He has painted a six feet high portrait of a burns victim’s face (a man who had endured more than 50 surgeries); large enough “so people can’t look away” from him. 

He says he sees people and wonders what their story is. There are the super attractive and well known, but what about the other 99.9 per cent of society, Marty asks? “I tell myself, ‘go find someone to paint, don’t get captured by someone that’s really distinguished - it doesn’t matter’.”

2012 was a big year for Marty. By now an accomplished portraitist, he was approached to be part of a TV show, The Sitting. The show featured Marty conducting interviews with 20 well known New Zealanders, while also painting them.

The Sitting was filmed in an intense three months. “It wasn’t the nicest experience but it was an achievement and we’re proud of it.” 

Each painting was then auctioned for Starship Hospital, raising around $160,000.

“We’d lived there for about five years straight. There was no way we could repay them,” he said.

Marty has painted scientist/inventor Sir Ray Avery, who wrote about him in his book ‘The Power of Us’, which celebrates New Zealanders who dare to dream. Ray went on to auction a blank canvas for Marty to paint someone’s portrait. He’s done this twice now, raising money for one of Ray’s inventions, the life pod infant incubator.

Marty has also painted three New Zealand governors general - Sir Jerry Mataparae, Sir Anand Satyanand, Sir Michael Hardie Boys.

“I meet everybody I paint. I don’t do it from photos - I don’t know that person; I don’t know their story.” He likes to observe their mannerisms, and hear about their life. The portrait naturally evolves from that, he says.

“To do a good portrait you’ve got to know or understand someone. EDAP is about that. It’s not about a reward or a pat on the back.”

EDAP is Marty’s project “everyone deserves a portrait”, born in those early days at Starship with Scotty. It’s his goal to create a series of portraits celebrating ordinary yet extraordinary people around the world. Marty has already painted five portraits for the series, and has his eye on a controversial Antarctic scientist, and an African farmer participating in a UN programme helping to drastically reduce child mortality.

He is now in talks with Netflix about EDAP.

Funding is the biggest challenge though, and when Marty found the worldwide EDAP wasn’t getting much traction, he thought “why don’t I just do a smaller, community version?”

That was possible in Wanaka, his home for the past six years. 

At the end of the eventful 2012, during which he won a major art prize, the Adam Portraiture Award, Marty drove his van to the South Island for a week. He arrived in Wanaka, a place he’d never heard of, on a cold July day. The town was under an inversion layer and Matry sat at the lakefront and pictured his kids growing up here.

Because of Scotty’s challenges, the family had to think hard about moving. But once they decided, he brought Mandy to Wanaka on a brilliantly sunny day. As they drove into town, Marty said: “Where the f--- did these mountains come from?” 

“Within a few weeks I knew I’d made the right choice about moving, after walking down Helwick Street and hearing people calling out “hi Scotty!” to my son. We never looked back. I love it. I love the mountains, I love getting out hiking and camping.”

He has a small studio at the Wanaka Arts Centre and is on the board.

“There’s some really good art being made in this town,” Marty says. He is planning to add to that with an Upper Clutha EDAP exhibition in November. 

“I want to celebrate ourselves with some art, before the summer crowd gets here. Just for us, the people who keep the town running.”

He’s completed six local portraits so far: his son Scott (“the Wanaka volunteer”); barista Robert Holt; chestnut grower Greg Inwood, long-term local Marg Scaife, teenager Ferdia O’Connell, and primary school student Louis Dorset. He has six more to go.

He and Mandy are looking for practical help with the exhibition, which they hope to hold in a large marquee, with hay bales for seating, a giant lolly scramble for the kids, and a spit-roast barbecue. They have a vision for an accessible, fun, community event - not a highbrow art exhibition.

“We feel uncomfortable asking for money, that’s why we’re asking for some time, or help from companies that might be able to contribute, such as farms, bakeries, breweries, or vineyards.”

The event will include a blank Stephen Martyn Welch (his art world name) canvas up for auction. 

“There are people who need to be celebrated,” Marty says of EDAP. “I’m not trying to judge them, I just want to chronicle them. It’s something that gives me purpose.”

To find out more about Marty, his work, and EDAP, or to contact him and Mandy about the Wanaka event, visit his website.

PHOTO: Supplied