Artists & Groups

Paintings (Oil, Water Colour), Fine Art Drawings (Charcoal, Pencil).

Hi, I’m D Bruce Aitken.

I was born and raised in Invercargill, New Zealand. I’m an artist who has recently based myself in Cromwell, New Zealand.
I have been painting and drawing most of my life and these days I specialise mainly in landscape oil paintings and fine art drawings of the Central Otago region.
I first started showing and selling my art in the early 1980s and have sold many works in the Cromwell region.
One of my first paintings, which was featured in an exhibition, appeared in a photo in the Southland Times in 1969, and I’ve been active in the arts since then.
Through the years when not painting or drawing I have enjoyed the pleasures of playing, recording and writing music around the world and am a multi-award-winning drummer. I was inducted into the Southland Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. I featured on the cover of New Zealand’s Drum Connexions magazine, and I also founded the Cape Breton International Drum Festival in Canada, which ran successfully for 10 years.

You can check out my musical history here.

However, these days, it’s all about ‘the art’.

I started visiting and staying in Queensberry, Central Otago, from a very early age on what was then Alex and Noelene King’s farm. During the 1980s, I spent a lot of time visiting Cromwell, where I started painting. I sold oil paintings, fine art drawings and very detailed watercolours, some of which you can see on this website. I even sold the one that was featured in the newspaper. 
My love of Cromwell and the surrounding areas has always drawn me (pun intended) back to the area.
So, in January, 2024, I returned to start work on the paintings that form the basis of the exhibition Brushes to Brushes, held at The Cromwell Museum – a nod to my parallel careers using drum brushes and paint brushes.
The paintings are the first time I’ve used oils since 1988.
What started all those years ago and was captured in the Southland Times when I was 15, and selling my first painting, has now come full circle.
Central Otago has always been my spiritual home, and I am really excited to be back in New Zealand, and to live here in Cromwell and continue my adventure painting and drawing.

• Disciplines:
• Musician
• Painting

Location