Fourteen pieces of art by Billy Apple have been put up for auction on Trade Me, to benefit the New Zealand AIDS Foundation Wellness Fund. The esteemed artist who was born with the name Barrie Bates has a long history of supporting HIV sufferers. In 1993 he produced a painting Art For AIDS, which has been sold twice and seen $20,000 donated to the former Bruce Burnett Memorial Fund, which is now the Wellness Fund. Apple extended the Art For AIDS project by creating 50 screenprints on white acrylic, from which 14 are now available on Trade Me. They measure 145.90 mm x 236.07mm, which is 5.57% of the size of the painting and cost $557, which 5.57% of the painting's cost. The calculations conform to the golden ratio of 1.618:1. Apple's work is associated with the New York and British schools of Pop Art in the 1960s and with the Conceptual Art movement in the 1970s, who has collaborated with Andy Warhol. He is regarded as being a pioneer of the use of neon. The Art For AIDS prints are tax deductible and each edition number is engraved on the bottom left. Check out the auction here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 14th May 2011 - 6:55pm