Mandii Pope: NZ artist in London   22 Feb 2012

Anna Blair

While countless New Zealand artists are based in London, painter Mandii Pope has carved her own niche, describing herself as “halfway between corporate and artist”. Originally from Auckland, Pope has spent eight years in London, concentrating on painting for the last four.

Pope’s most recent solo show was at Gallery 27, an art space available to hire in Mayfair, last August. It’s on Cork Street, near some of London’s most prestigious commercial galleries, and benefits from foot traffic that’s interested in art. Pope’s work includes abstract paintings, landscapes, nudes and ‘kiwiana’ paintings that will give almost any expat a craving for pineapple lumps. One of Pope’s portraits was given to Naomi Campbell as a gift.

Mandii Pope arrives for our interview wearing yellow trousers and a pale blue blazer with floral detailing. It’s a cheerful outfit in London’s grey winter and it seems to reflect her character.

This upbeat personality is important, given the importance of networking to any artist and particularly to one like Pope, who eschews the usual gallery representation in favour of marketing herself in business circles. Pope is a member of countless networking groups, including the New Zealand Business Women’s Network and the NZ Society. Asked if she ever finds networking tiring, she shakes her head, says she “love[s] it” and notes that “you meet so many interesting people”.

Pope can make friends with anyone. She tells me of an elderly French man she met in a cafe, who she communicated with through charades and pictures drawn on napkins. Similarly, she interacts easily with the “dragon’s den type investors” to whom she looks for funding. She counts both travellers in their early twenties and Owen Glenn, who assisted in financing her last show, among her kiwi friends. Pope’s interest in others is clear in our interview; whenever there’s a pause I find she’s asking enthusiastically about my life.

In addition to working as an artist full-time, Pope works part-time for Landmark PLC, resulting in quite a workload.

This busy lifestyle hasn’t dampened her enthusiasm for painting. “I felt like I was a hippy dancing through a field,” she says about working on a large commission of spin paintings.

While noting that painting in a wide variety of styles is partially “commercially minded,” Pope also feels that different styles allow her to express different parts of herself. Speaking about the divide between her figurative and abstract work, Pope feels “one is about memories and one is about raw emotions”.

“This year is different,” Pope says confidently when asked about the future, showing me her calendar for the year, important art events marked. Pope plans to see more shows in galleries this year and network within the art world. Having established corporate clients, Pope hopes, will now give her greater freedom as a painter.

Pope is preparing for a show in Paris later this year and may take this opportunity to do some Parisian cityscapes. Her Venetian views were particularly popular when exhibited at Gallery 27.

The conversation frequently returns to the benefits of Pope’s days at art school, which encouraged her to look inside herself and analyse the world deeply. She notes that she’d like to reconnect with a more spiritual side of her personality, channelling this into her artwork as she did when younger. A return to this might be quite exciting; images from art school, which includes crocodile typography and experimentation with acrylic paint on lino, are among her most intriguing works.

Mandii Pope’s paintings aren’t in any museums at this point, something she’d like to work towards in the future. She’s also very interested in public art and expresses disappointment about having missed the application date to work on one of the eggs that are soon to decorate London’s streets. These eggs are to be auctioned to raise money for Action for Children and Elephant Family, something that’s also a pull.

Pope values charity work highly. Vivienne Westwood and Gisele Bundchen are both among her subjects; their eagerness to give back to communities is first on the list of reasons she admires them. Similarly, when asked about her favourite New Zealand artist, Brad Novak’s fundraising for Christchurch is as important as his quirky images.

Art’s positive social role is also central to Pope’s interest in painting. She developed an art project, painting t-shirts, for disabled children in Romania. “It’s empowering, creating something” she says, “I love watching people feel empowered like that”.

Pope doesn’t plan to go back to New Zealand soon. Practically, as an artist it’s expensive and time-consuming to be based in NZ, while London is ideally poised for Europe. Pope feels removed from her homeland, telling me she’s “not looking back at New Zealand, but looking more internationally”. She shows me a map of the world with ticks for each place to which one of her artworks has been sold. The ticks spread across four continents.

Mandii Pope sees art as a way of making the world better –both for those creating it and for those looking at her paintings, all of whom derive different pleasures based on their own individual tastes and experiences. It’s difficult to make the transition from artistic success in a corporate world to in museums and public collections, but Pope’s the sort of person you want to succeed, knowing that if she does she’ll both appreciate it and pass on that joy to those around her.

Discover more about Mandii Pope and her work through her website.

Anna Blair is a freelance writer and architectural historian studying hotels from the 1920s. She currently divides her time between Paris and East London. Further writing can be found at http://ohhiparis.blogspot.com/

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