By 1975 Don began working in what would become his signature format using hanging plastic banners, tarpaulins and blankets adorned with an assortment of ‘found’ everyday objects such as clothing, tools, doormats, and animal skins.
From this time comes Pacific Salt – a work the late Ron O’Reilly recalled Colin McCahon describing as ‘Don’s best painting ever’. Certainly it possesses a beauty which transcends the sum of its parts and the coloured fabric remnants, tarpaulin and plastic sacking work together both in an abstract sense and in relation to their Pacific location.
- Paul Rayner, intro to 'Practical Magic', Sarjeant Gallery, 2002

Another work in the exhibition that incorporates found items is Don Driver’s (b.1930, d.2011) ‘Pacific Salt’ composed of a large tarpaulin, of the type found in many kiwi backyard sheds, covered in a collaged grid of a variety of remnant fabric strips and plastic sacking from salt bags. Once the viewer steps back from the wall and views it as one large composition, it becomes a masterful demonstration of Driver’s renowned use of colour and texture. In fact the NZ artist Colin McCahon (b.1919, d.1987) once described this work as “Don’s best painting ever” (As recalled by Ron O’Reilly (b.1914, d.1982) a well-known NZ art patron and friend of Colin McCahon.)
Jennifer Taylor Moore, Curator of Collections, Sarjeant Gallery for exhibition 'What It Is Not. Abstract Art from the Sarjeant Collection' 15 June - 25 July 2020