Brand New Love Palmy 2 2026 New work by Sarah Platt

Original available AT The Manawatu Art Show

Note: This is a preview image only, as the original is still in the process of being professionally scanned

We are accepting orders but there will be a wait time while this process completes, we appreciate your patience

This is the first 2017 Love Palmy print

from the Love Manawatu Collection

Love Palmy 2 2026

I created the Love Manawatu collection in 2017 in conjunction with a lovely group of art apprentices. I did the design and colour choices and they did the heavy lifting of the actual painting. Then I took the pieces back and finished them off. It was a great way to get the collection of five pieces produced, and I loved working with my little team of artists.

We auctioned the pieces of in partnership with Property Brokers, halving the profit over my costs with the Hospice. It was a great experience. At the time I said that the Love Palmy piece might be the last I would do of Palmerston North. I’d worked on that piece entirely by myself, and it was a cracker. The Mayors’ office and Toyota New Zealand went into battle for it in the auction, with Toyota ending up being the winner. Since then, I’ve sold 200 large prints of the image. I don’t make it available as a small print, trying to keep it a bit more exclusive for the buyers.

Since that time, I created one more collection in the style of towns and houses I’m known for in the Manawatu, this time on the Wairarapa towns.  Instead of continuing in that style, I’ve turned my hand to landscapes painted in oil, with wonderful trips around Otago to capture the magnificent scenes down there. We take photos, and then I come home and paint them.

This year I’ve made the decision to show at the Manawatu Art Expo, something I’ve always wanted to do, but I’ve had to choose between it and the Manawatu Home Show, as they are always on in the same weekend, and I sell a lot of work at the Home Show. The Art Expo does not allow the kind of prints I sell, so I realise that I’d only have originals of landscapes to show, and no one viewing my work would associate me with the style I’m known for here in the Manawatu. Thus the need for a new original of Palmerston North was established.

I chose a deeper canvas to work on this time, which allowed me to put more focus into the hills above the river, including some of the new builds, the observatory and steps and cliffs below, and the fabulous new Massey Vet building. Also new in this new image of Palmy is the beautiful He Awa Kotahi bridge with the beginning of the track out to Linton, which is such an asset to our city. When I painted the first Love Palmy, the windmills were still clustered around the Manawatu Gorge, but since 2017 they have spread further down the Tararuas and can be seen from the city. Lots of people buying the first Love Palmy piece are disappointed that it does not have the windmills, so I’m pleased now to have the New Love Palmy 2 piece that provides that detail. Another difference between Love Palmy and Love Palmy 2, is that my landscape painting skills have come a long way. For this painting I took the reference photos of the ranges from the top of the Plaza car park. It was strange going back to painting with fast drying acrylic paint after years of oil paint (apart from acrylic pieces I’ve done as commissions for people). Painting landscapes in acrylic requires a very different approach, but after an initial bad start, I mucked around with it, and love the way they turned out in the end.  

Apart from this, the first Love Palmy painting has 11 buildings I have not included this time, but the new Love Palmy 2 has 7 new buildings and details. The pieces are still very similar. I hope this piece can bring as much pleasure to people as the first one I painted has done.