A painting at Whangarei's Robert Harris Cafe in the Strand on Wednesday caused so much offence the artist was asked to remove it only hours after he'd put it up.
And that has the painter Barry Wilson, of Onerahi, frustrated.
He says Whangarei folk are overly conservative when it comes to art.
"It's
the first time I've ever had anyone ask me to take a painting down," said Mr Wilson, a painter of 30 years.
His exhibition at Robert Harris in depicts a variety of scenes.
"There are other a couple of other nudes there, but it was just this one that has seemed to cause offence."
He said the owners of the cafe were happy for the painting to go up alongside his others - "they're great, they've been really good to me" - but Mr Wilson says a few of the young female staff were surprised and uncomfortable with the painting.
Mr Wilson hung the painting, one of his favourites, on Wednesday morning but received a phone call that afternoon asking him to collect it, as several customers had complained about its "graphic nature".
"I just laughed. What more could I do?" Mr Wilson came to Whangarei after years living on a nudist beach on Waiheke Island.
He said it was a shame many Northlanders were still limited in their views of art.
Another painting of his in an Onerahi cafe, depicting a can-can dancer hitching up her skirt and exposing a breast, drew complaints too.
"I think it's just not having the exposure to it," Mr Wilson said.
"It would be good to stir up some debate on the subject."
It's not the first time an art exhibition in a Whangarei cafe has caused a fuss.
Last year, artist Joanna Ball's series of dog paintings exhibited at The Bach at the Town Basin, near Mokaba Cafe, drew complaints from the public as two of the paintings showed the dogs' penises.
Business boomed at the cafe after the controversy, which was reported nationwide.
