A PORTRAIT SAM CHOSE

Sam Neill was a true Kiwi icon, woven deeply into the fabric of who we are as New Zealanders. For ex-Warkworth local and artist Julian Ford, that legacy carries a personal thread: a painting.

Last September, Julian was deep into a collection called Kiwi Icons, and Sam Neill – actor, Central Otago vintner, and a man with a genuine appreciation for art – was chosen as one of his subjects. When the portrait surfaced on social media, it caught Sam's eye. Not long after, Julian was contacted by Sam's PA: Sam wanted to buy it. For an artist, having your work chosen and purchased by its own subject is a rare and quietly extraordinary honour, and Julian hasn't forgotten it.

Julian's road to that moment wound through more than paint. Raised in Algies Bay and educated at Mahurangi College, he played for the Mahurangi Rugby Club and was involved with the Sandspit Yacht Club before starting Signup Signs in Warkworth with his mother. A love of rallying led him to work alongside Possum Bourne and the Subaru Australia Rally Team, before life brought him back to Warkworth, then on to Queenstown, where a car valet business – and its unexpectedly well-connected clientele, including Sam Neill – set him on the path to painting.

Julian was later asked to be artist in residence in Wānaka, tasked with creating a painting of the actual Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, on loan from Peter Jackson. Once he'd finished, Peter signed the painting himself, and it was auctioned off for charity. Commissions for WRC driver Hayden Paddon and ex-All Black Kees Meeuws followed.

Now based in Long Beach, Dunedin, Julian's portrait of Sam Neill stands as a lasting tribute – from spanners to paintbrushes, and from a chance encounter to a legacy captured in paint.

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