Tea or Coffee?

Tea or coffee?

You arrive at someone's house. A friend, a relative, someone you haven't seen in a while. They bring you in, and almost straight away, that's the question. Tea or coffee? It's such a New Zealand thing. It means sit down. It means stay a while. It means whatever's going on in your life, we've got a few minutes to hear about it.

That's what this painting is about. The two tins are Bell Tea and Nescafé, not because they're fancy, but because they're the ones that have always been there. Your grandparents had them. Your parents had them. Most Kiwi households have had both at some point, and most Kiwis have a position on which one they'd choose.

The OR sets the tone for the whole painting. Without it, you just have a coffee tin and a tea tin on a shelf. With it, the viewer gets there on their own. Ah, yeah. That question.

What I love about it is that you could imagine this hanging in someone's kitchen. And if a visitor notices the painting, you probably wouldn't even need to ask. You could just let them sit with it for a moment and see what they say. But whichever way they get there, somehow, tea or coffee gets the conversation started.