The Nugget: Josh Lancaster

Hawkes Bay domiciled artist, Josh Lancaster’s creativity was evident pretty early on. He remembers winning a kids’ cow drawing competition in 1981, after spending hours practicing not just the perfect form of the teat, but also the anatomically correct number of them as well.

These skills made him a natural for a career as an advertising art director where his bovine brilliance gave way to commercials shot and awards won all around the world. Highlights included blowing up a billboard for a courier company, spending time in jail (photographing cells), and almost suffering third-degree burns while shooting an ad in the scalding hot desert sands of Dubai. In jandals.

It was clearly time to get out of advertising and follow his dream of becoming an artist, focusing on painting New Zealand landscapes - many of them commissions evoking an idealised memory for the purchaser. His love of the land sees him heading off to fly fish in his downtime - mostly to turn his phone off and “get a better look at life”. He reckons all his favourite things are offline but that’s probably ‘cos the Internet connection’s not that great where he lives. He also loves spending time with his three young boys doing bombs in the Tukituki River, or just hanging out with them in his studio. Josh is ever hopeful that soon they might even start painting onto canvases, rather than directly onto the walls of his house.

Doing stuff he loves is paying off with regular, sold-out exhibitions where he revels in leaving the bare feet and paint splattered t-shirts behind to don his favourite 3 Wise Men kit, including this Lancaster blazer ($400), these tan suede Mase boots ($250), our slim-fit Pearl shirt and black Selvedge denim jeans (both $120 each or 3 for $300).

Yep, it’s a full life for Josh and one, having taken a big journey to get to, he’s in no hurry to change.