It's a tiny sketch, a simple landscape dominated by a church and spire. It's just a moment in the life of Petrus van der Velden, captured with a pencil.

'But it's fantastic,” says Tauranga Art Gallery's marketing and media co-ordinator Martine Rolls.

Tauranga Art Gallery's marketing and media co-ordinator Martine Rolls admires the work of Petrus van der Velden.

She's hovering over the sketch in the lower gallery and reflecting. 'That church spire looks like the one I would cycle past on my way to school every day.”

Maybe not the same church, because Dutch-born Martine comes from Gorinchem – about 40km east of Rotterdam, where van der Velden was born.

'But that's the beauty of art. You can imagine, you can think and dream and there is this connection for me, which is very nice.”

There are also sketches of Leuvehaven, a little port in Rotterdam. There's a firmer connection here.

Martine would go to Leuvehaven to unwind and gaze on the tall ships when she lived there for 14 years.

'I love tall ships, they give me warm fuzzies. And those drawings are here, so that's exciting.”

But it's up on the walls of the gallery that van der Velden is much bigger, much bolder and so much more dramatic.

The significant works at Toi Tauranga and on loan from Te Papa include ‘The Marken Funeral Barge' – a substantial piece, dark and brooding, evocative and impressionist.

'The wife is lying face down on top of the coffin in the barge as was the custom,” says Martine.

It was a time the artist was capturing ordinary lives and the drama of their relationship with a harsh environment. In this case a family funeral procession to a church.

'It's emotional. There's a sadness but very wild and emotive. Beautiful at the same time.”

There's another interesting connection here in Tauranga.

'For the opening of the exhibition we issued an invite through the Multicultural Council and a Dutch cheese shop on Cameron Rd.”

A ploy to pull people with a cultural connection through the door of the gallery.

You just have to thumb through the Vs for ‘Van de something' or rather in the electoral roll and you get a feel for how many Dutch settled in New Zealand in the 1950s.

Six years of war in Europe had smashed lives and futures and so they went elsewhere looking for opportunity.

Another Dutchman, Petrus van der Velden went before them 70 years earlier. But for different reasons.

As a mature but disenchanted artist in 1890, he packed his easel, oils and offspring and headed to Christchurch and self-imposed exile.

There he discovered the wild and untouched Otira Gorge and landscapes – a fascination that would occupy him until his death.

‘Mountain Stream' from that Otira series is on exhibition at the Tauranga Art Gallery.

'This is what I love about New Zealand,” says Martine.

She now lives far from Gorinchem and Rotterdam in Welcome Bay.

'After a storm I can hear the stream gurgling in a reserve at the back of my property. I love that sound.”

You can stop, listen and imagine the same sound in van der Velden's ‘Mountain Stream'.

'We have had many first and second generation Dutch people in the gallery. They feel the significance and have really enjoyed it.”

Look over your left shoulder and there's another major work by this powerful and important New Zealand artist. It's called ‘Wellington Heads'.

Were those figures clearing a beach after a shipwreck or were they bringing contraband ashore that stormy day?

'It makes you wonder,” says Martine. 'So it's doing its job.”

Then there's ‘The Hermit of Wellington Harbour'. Charlie Pressman lived on a beached boat. He's poised over a book or letter in the glow of a fire with his cat. It's small, dark and intimate – we are invading his privacy.

'Well he doesn't appear too worried about it,” says Martine.

And because the gallery has a real focus on contemporary art, Martine says it's nice to offer something like van der Velden.

However, as you enter the gallery, before you get to van der Velden, there's a massive, bright and bold installation by Seung Yul Oh which completely transforms people's perceptions of the space.

And upstairs there's an exhibition called ‘The Universe' – offering 22 works from the University of Waikato's collection by New York-based New Zealander Max Gimblett.

Many of the works demonstrate those signature gestural splashes of colour – wild but wonderful.

'Three quite disparate exhibitions,” says Martine. 'But they seem to come together quite nicely.”