From Castlecliff to Thames, half court to full court, around Aotearoa artists are increasingly being commissioned to create eye-popping colourful designs for public basketball courts.
These courts, here and internationally, have long been the obsession with drones of celebrated Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-based aerial photographer and artist Petra Leary.
To understand how intense Leary's strong eye and sense of design is with line, colour and the play between two and three dimensions check out her Instagram feed. In particular: her hand cut collages, rearranging many many images of basketball courts in new configurations.
Leary's accomplished top-down view of the world, sees her balance her own art with commercial campaigns for clients ranging from Porsche to Nike. Her images have been seen everywhere from Times Square billboards to the London exhibition of project Accidentally Wes Anderson.
It was six years ago that Leary first exploded into attention. She was the subject of a Loading Docs documentary, became an ambassador for ADHD New Zealand and had a photo essay in The Guardian.
Yet, in the years since her interest in basketball courts has remained undimmed.
Petra Leary's work features in a new book from German publishers Gestalkten Courtside Candy: The Culture and Influence of Basketball. And her exhibition Sustain - Embrace the Unknown is at Silo6 in the Auckland Festival of Photography, June 2-15
