6 July, 2026

Intuitive artist relies on music to make paintings sing

From the light within… Artist Tina Frantzen with a couple of the abstract works in her exhibition at Satellite2 gallery this month

Devonport artist Tina Frantzen describes her upcoming exhibition as “conducting on canvas”.
Frantzen says she paints from feeling and the light within, not what she sees.
“It’s a very intuitive process and I don’t have ideas as such, but I always paint to music and that influences my work.”
Beethoven’s music is a favourite choice for the energy and vitality it evokes. She always begins with a meditation, to clear her mind and let the art flow.
A few times in her life Frantzen’s works were inspired by particular things she has seen and remembered.
One is a pilgrimage she made to Sfendami, Greece, to find and thank the family who sheltered a young World War II soldier who had fallen ill. The soldier survived to have a daughter – Frantzen – though sadly he passed away when she was just a baby.
It wasn’t until she read his journals as a teenager that she got to know him. She says her memories of her journey to Greece over 30 years ago are as strong as they were then.
Photography was Frantzen’s first medium – she didn’t take up painting until 2006. After completing a course at Art Station in Ponsonby (now Studio One Toi Tū), she approached the operators of Depot Artspace at the time, Linda Blincko and Lynn Lawton, about the possibility of having a group show.
Her timing turned out to be right and that show was the start of an association with the couple that has endured to this day.

Her new exhibition, Immanence, is on at the couple’s Satellite2 gallery in Victoria Rd from 4-21 July.
“Immanence is the 20th anniversary of my association and friendship with Lynn and Linda,” Frantzen says. That first show included some of Frantzen’s doorway paintings, which were based on a memory of the front doors of her homes.
From painting doorways, Frantzen moved on to painting people. Again it was an intuitive process. She would start with a random background colour, overlaid by a darker colour, and then use a rag to rub the overlay away to “reveal whoever turned up”. They weren’t people she knew or recognised; they would come unbidden. At the time she was listening to Middle Eastern music while she painted and said it meant “different people turned up”.

Frantzen hopes that when a viewer engages with her work they bring their own life experiences, memories and meanings.
Talking to the Flagstaff, she still hasn’t decided on the final line-up of her abstract works to include in her exhibition. Nor has she decided on a “hero” work to take pride of place, though it might be the larger of the works she is pictured with above. Its swathe of turquoise is something of a departure from previous work. “This is the bravest colour I’ve done.”