Otago Wall Art
Otago wall art is centered on Queenstown and the glacial lakes around it: Lake Wakatipu, with the town on its shore, and Lake Wanaka to the north. A mountain road, a paraglider over the town and a sea cave at Dunedin add variety to a range built mostly on turquoise water and snow-capped peaks.
Lake Wakatipu Is Shaped Like A Lightning Bolt
Lake Wakatipu was carved by glaciers into a long, zigzagging shape rather than a simple oval, and the aerial views here make that shape the subject, with Queenstown sitting at one of its bends. The lake is one of New Zealand's largest, and its odd shape is also why local legend explains its water level rising and falling on its own.
Queenstown Sits Where The Lake Meets The Remarkables
The town itself is a small grid of streets between the lake and the Remarkables mountain range, and the downtown aerial views here show that squeeze clearly, with the lake filling most of the frame and the mountains closing off the far side. It is New Zealand's adventure tourism town, and the pictures favor height, water and snow over street-level detail.
The Skyline Gondola And Luge Appear From Above
Queenstown's Skyline complex, a gondola and luge track on Bob's Peak above the town, supplies the switchback road pictures here, shot from high enough to show the full curve of the track against the lake below. The gondola has carried visitors up the hillside since the 1960s, and a paraglider over the same view adds a human scale to an otherwise landscape-only range.
Lake Wanaka Turns Gold In Autumn
North of Queenstown, Lake Wanaka is the calmer, less developed of the two lakes in this range, and the autumn pictures here catch the birch and willow trees along its shore turning gold against the still water. Mount Roy, the peak that rises directly behind the town, appears in the wider lake view, and the town of Wanaka itself stays smaller and quieter than Queenstown, which is part of why the pictures here favor the shoreline over any street scene.
Devil's Staircase Is A Road, Not A Hiking Trail
Devil's Staircase is a winding section of the road that runs along Lake Wakatipu toward Kingston, and the picture here looks down on its switchbacks from above, with the turquoise lake filling the valley beside it. It is a driving road, so the picture reads as a landscape rather than an adventure sport scene.
Tunnel Beach Is Reached Through A Hand Carved Passage
Near Dunedin, at the southern edge of the Otago region, Tunnel Beach is a small cove reached by a sandstone tunnel cut by hand in the 1870s. It is the one coastal picture in a range built mostly around inland lakes, and its cliffs and sea arches are a different palette from the turquoise lake water elsewhere in the collection.
Sizing A Lake And Mountain Scene
An aerial lake view is a wide subject best given close to the full width of the furniture beneath it, so the shoreline and the mountains behind it both have room. The Devil's Staircase and Tunnel Beach pictures are narrower in subject and hold up at a smaller size.
A Panoramic Canvas Suits The Widest Lake Views
The Lake Wakatipu valley view and several of the aerial Queenstown pictures are available as a panoramic canvas, which keeps the lake's full bend in one strip rather than cropping it square. The Wanaka autumn scene and Tunnel Beach suit a single horizontal canvas instead.
Where Otago Wall Art Connects On The Site
For the wider country see New Zealand wall art, for Queenstown on its own see Queenstown wall art, and for mountains elsewhere see mountain wall art.
How Each Canvas Is Made
Every piece is printed to order using archival, fade resistant inks on museum quality canvas, stretched over a solid wooden inner frame, and shipped ready to hang with free shipping.
Common Questions
What does this Otago collection show?
Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu from the air and from the Skyline gondola road, Lake Wanaka in autumn, the Devil's Staircase road, and Tunnel Beach near Dunedin.
Why is Lake Wakatipu shaped so unusually?
Glacial carving left it as a long, zigzagging trench rather than a simple oval, one of the more distinctive lake shapes in New Zealand. Queenstown sits at a bend partway along its length.
What is Tunnel Beach?
A small cove near Dunedin, reached through a sandstone tunnel cut by hand in the 1870s. It is the one coastal, sea-arch subject in a range otherwise built around the inland lakes further north.
What is the road shown in the Devil's Staircase picture?
A section of the road running along Lake Wakatipu toward Kingston, known for its switchbacks above the water. It is a driving road, not a hiking trail, and the picture is shot looking down on the curve from above.
Does the Wanaka scene suit a smaller room?
Yes. The Lake Wanaka autumn picture is a calmer, more intimate subject than the wide Queenstown aerial views, so it holds up well in a bedroom or reading nook rather than needing a large living room wall.