Bruce’s lounge is also a studio where dozens of piece of art have taken shape.

There are dozens of paintings on the shelves and walls of Bruce Denton’s workroom but one of the simplest might say the most about his artistic journey.

The painting is of a tall mast ship battling white-capped waves. It is similar to hundreds of others painted in the early 1960s –similar, but far from the same.

“Oh, you know what, that painting is a paint by numbers that I did when I was a kid, and it’s the oldest painting of mine that I have,” the ŌCHT tenant says.

“We found it when we went through my parents’ personal effects after they passed, I had no idea they’d kept it.

“I painted it when I was 12 years old. I didn’t like the shapes so I adapted them and coloured them my own way. I like to do things my way.

“I suppose I did it and moved on but they kept it, and dad gave it a frame. After all those years, it’s special to have the memories that come with it.”

Young Bruce was already known as the kid who sketched in class by the time he upended the paint-by-numbers formula to his own ends.

His was still an avid drawer when he left school at 16 to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force ahead of a career as an aviation mechanic spanning more than 20 years.

Flight īs in his DNA. Bruce still has the slightest of memories of when his dad, a former air force navigator, took him for his first flight at just 2-years-old.

There’s only so much space on the walls - most of Bruce’s artwork is stored away, waiting for its chance to be seen.

“I remember a big white thing and looking down, everything seemed so small. Flying's part of my background, that might be where it all started.”

Bruce sketched in his downtime, in the hangar and even while island-hopping on air force missions, but output slowed when he left the air force in the late 80s.

Affected by PTSD from his time serving, a series of unexpected personal challenges eventually led to Bruce travelling the South Island looking for work.

“People talk about living in cars now, and that’s terrible, but back then I was literally sleeping on the side of road, by my motorbike in Southland.”

He landed work at a petrol station in Nelson, before a series of jobs lead him back to aviation support and eventually to cabin upholstery for Air NZ in Christchurch.

Bruce was at an exhibition in a Nelson gallery when he met a painter who encouraged him to extend his talent for drawing to painting with watercolours.

She loaned him some brushes and paints, and “told me something I’ve held on to since then, to paint what I see”.

Judging by his prodigious output, what Bruce sees is often based on lived experience, memory and heritage, careful research and flights of imagination.

Literal flight – of his own flying experience, of historically significant aircraft and of real and stylised flying scenes – is subject of many of his paintings.

There’s a Catalina painted when he read about Sir Edmond Hillary’s RNZAF experiences, Swiss ME-109-G10s based on the story of a wartime incident, and the gold flash of an A4-K Skyhawk repainted for the RNZAF’s 50th anniversary.

Nearly every room in Bruce’s home is adorned with paintings reflecting his love of flight, family and fantasy.

There’s also a painting of an RNZAF Skyhawk flying away from a farmhouse. Bruce was there when the same jet was checked after hitting a chimney and tree after an unauthorised flypast.

Others reimagine history, often based on Bruce’s research and visits to the likes of Canterbury Museum. A painting of Lyttelton Harbour shows land untouched by human settlement and in another, a giant Haast eagle dwarfs the bush.

A portrait of Marlene Deitrich hangs in his hallway; a portrait of his parents, warmly laughing together, hangs above the paints and canvas spread on his kitchen table.

Tales of fantasy line his bookshelves and many influence his work. Many paintings imagine scenes from the Tales of Scheherazade; a Celtic god watches over his bedroom.

Bruce was just starting to learn more about painting with oils when he was robbed of his dexterity by a pair of back and neck injuries.

He emerged from an operation on his severely twisted neck unable to feel anything below his chest. It was “terrifying, absolutely”.

Much of last year was spent in ongoing specialist and gym-based rehabilitation. Helped by a walking frame, Bruce is confidently reclaiming his mobility.

“Painting does take time now” - he now grips his brushes in his hand, not with his thumb and forefinger – but “I’m getting there as the feeling starts to come back”.

Bruce’s latest painting expresses a dep family connection to a special part of Canterbury.

That’s in part why he’s taking his time with his latest project , a carefully crafted scene that demonstrates how important family, heritage and memory are in his work.

It’s of the river and hills of the Upper Rangitata Basin, from a photograph his sister took when they scattered their parents ashes in 2023.

Bruce and his father used to fish the river as the rest of the family rambled about the riverbank and bush.

His dad’s fishing rods are now in Bruce’s work room, near a stack of aircraft models, hung underneath the paint-by-numbers picture his parents quietly kept and framed all those years ago.