Sarah Albisser was born in Switzerland. She completed her studies as a contemporary dancer in 1996 at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York. Her career as an independent dancer and choreographer includes founding the dance theatre company Waterproof in 2001. The company has had successful performances in Switzerland and International with awards in 2002 and 2003 for her work as a dancer and choreographer.
She received a certificate in art from Farbmuehle in lucerne, Switzerland in 2006 and also completed a one year painting cours at the Art Station in Auckland, New Zealand. She has had exhibitions of her work in Switzerland, New Zealand and Los Angeles.
Stephen Allwood was born in Fiji in 1959. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Canterbury University, majoring in printmaking.
Since moving to Martinborough 22 years ago Stephen has taken inspiration from the things around him in this semi-rural settimg,including the Wairarapa landscape.
He works mostly in oils on canvas and his paintings are as much about the joy of painting as about the subject.
This dashing, painterly style can often take the works in unexpected directions.
He exhibits regularly at Bowen Galleries in Wellington and Arexart in Auckland.
Jordan is an award winning painter and recording artist signed to US Indie Label Lazy Bones Recordings. Although predominantly a visual artist, Jordan has also found success within the music & TV industries having placed 5 songs on the Emmy Award winning Fox TV Show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He is the perfect example of someone that knows what he wants and has the skill and drive to make it happen...
Jane Blackmore is the joint owner of Blackmore-Best Gallery in Shelly Bay, Wellington. As a practicing artist with over 20 years experience, Jane’s work is primarily inspired by the stunning and singular vistas of the Wellington hills and harbour. Characterised by emotional intensity, visitors to the gallery are struck by how her paintings announce themselves with a calm assuredness – the hallmark of an established artist who continues to grow and challenge her own artistic vision.
In an age where speed and instant gratification seem to permeate every corner of our lives, Jane’s paintings offer a space for thoughtful reflection. ‘Spirituality’ is a word contemporary artists and writers tend to avoid, favouring instead words like ‘ethereal’ or ‘intangible’. Blackmore’s landscapes are unashamedly spiritual. When we look at her landscapes and seascapes, we sense that we ourselves have inhabited these places, perhaps as children, perhaps in memory, or perhaps in a dream.
In equal measure to the spirituality in Jane’s work is joy, and this is abundant in her series of florals. Flowers push forward from dark backgrounds, defiantly sensuous and celebrating the natural cycles of birth, growth and decay. Jane’s floral works make you feel the same joy she felt when she painted them: right now, here, look.
Jane’s recent work continues her exploration of colour, form, and the visceral qualities of paint. Marking a shift towards a more pure abstraction, we see the artist peeling back layers of representation to arrive at a mélange of colour and light. Golds, purples, and blues –there is a lush regality to these works. Like the emotive charge of her landscapes, and the visual joy of her florals, her abstractions use a visual language synonymous with an artist working at a heightened level of skill and creative expression.
“For over 20 years I have found passion for my artwork in nature. The paintings, whether they are the flowers, abstractions or landscapes are predominantly about stopping and just being in the moment. I have a love for oil paint and the way it moves and glows, it is a constant fascination to me. It is this quality that pushes me to further explore colour, form and movement in all my art.
I want to capture a timeless quality in my work, something that becomes a meaningful part of your life. You will observe and engage differently every time you view it. Inhaling the beauty of something that has been created.”
Katie Blundell Artist is a mixed media Artist with a Masters of Fine Art from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University. Using common thoughts and feelings that come along with being human, her work is both personal and universal. Her artwork is enjoyed by many collectors both here and abroad. Recently she has opened her own Gallery+Studio in Clevedon where she creates, exhibits and teaches.
Brough has an extensive background in film scenic and prop painting, having worked at Weta Workshop and freelance for many years. His oil paintings capture some of the manufactured drama of the set environment, utilizing lighting and staged compositions to effect.
His current series of paintings are largely influenced by his recent move to rural Hawkes Bay, involving animal skulls found on or around the farm or by the Ngaruroro river.
Brough’s work is held in the Wallace Trust Collection and private collections around the country.
He has exhibited in the Adams Portrait Awards, Solander Gallery, Smyth Gallery,, Gallery DeNovo and Waiheke Gallery.
Michele Bryant studied textile design, going on to complete a degree in Art History. She has been an exhibiting artist for more than 20 years, with works in private and public collections nationally and internationally.
River Trees
“We moved to Hawkes Bay 3 years ago, and have been involved in various groups with interests in protecting the waterways and surrounds in the Ngaruroro area. We have spent a lot of time in and near the rivers, and my husband Jonathan Brough I have collected and drawn objects and trees from the edges of these environments. It has been interesting seeing the political mechanisms at work in this area of braided rivers, including river access, irrigation consents, and stone and gravel taken for roading, community and Iwi needs and the effects of any decisions regarding the rivers, on people for whom the rivers have immense value.”
www.michelebryant.co.nz
Daniel has worked with, and in, multi and mixed media for the last 20 years- although he primarily considers himself a sculptor. His practice is based in Nelson and although not as prolific as previous years, he still exhibits a few times a year, and on rare occasions such as this.
George Agius is a New Zealand born artist whose glass practice is an exploration of emigration, culture and legacy and its contribution to personal identity.
“Through the act of emigration we begin to cultivate and share experiences of place, of home and of belonging. Stories are shared, experiences reiterated, and our storylines slowly begin to entwine. “
Agius’ creative process is embedded in the act of making, her work incorporating sculptural and blown glass techniques often resulting in a whimsical aesthetic that helps convey the idea of the absent figure.
George has exhibited in Australia, New Zealand and Canada and assisted prominent contemporary glass artists.
In 2013 George completed the JamFactory Associate Training Program in Adelaide and has since exhibited in the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, Kennedy Art Prize, KIGA Illuminating Glass award and the Wagga Wagga National Emerging Art Glass Prize. In 2015 George was awarded the Vicki Torr Memorial Prize at the Australian Glass Conference. George Agius is a New Zealand born artist whose glass practice is an exploration of emigration, culture and legacy and its contribution to personal identity.
“Through the act of emigration we begin to cultivate and share experiences of place, of home and of belonging. Stories are shared, experiences reiterated, and our storylines slowly begin to entwine. “
Agius’ creative process is embedded in the act of making, her work incorporating sculptural and blown glass techniques often resulting in a whimsical aesthetic that helps convey the idea of the absent figure.
George has exhibited in Australia, New Zealand and Canada and assisted prominent contemporary glass artists.
In 2013 George completed the JamFactory Associate Training Program in Adelaide and has since exhibited in the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, Kennedy Art Prize, KIGA Illuminating Glass award and the Wagga Wagga National Emerging Art Glass Prize. In 2015 George was awarded the Vicki Torr Memorial Prize at the Australian Glass Conference.
Megan has been working as an artist for 20 years
Primarily self taught her work has been described as ‘Faux Naif but there is an acute awareness of art history and contemporary art .
The palette has changed from the signature dark series of a decade ago to the more saccharine softer pastel of current series .
The works continue to explore an ongoing theme of humankind’s connection with, and attempts to interpret the natural environs.
Beauty is found in the mundane and ordinary. There are vignettes of rather modest gardens spotted on daily rambles. Nature provides an ever changing yet constant backdrop for human activity, with human presence often indicated by manmade structures.
Greg O’Brien described Megan in his book ‘Back and Beyond [NZ Art For The Young and Curious]’ as a magpie “She poozles things from all over the place”. Latterly she has worked from secondary sources such as old garden manuals and books on floral arranging- prescriptions for activities that enable people to connect with and also manipulate the natural world, albeit in sometimes rather odd ways.
Sean Crawford is an internationally successful New Zealand sculptor known for his multi-layered approach to his art. One day he might be weaving stainless steel into contemporary forms, pursuing what he calls the new ‘Pacific Modern’, the next he might be exploring ideas about landscape and history in meticulous multimedia. He lives in rural Carterton, north-east of Wellington, where his studio looks onto the foothills of the Tararua mountain range.
Art and the great outdoors were features of Crawford’s childhood. He could draw before he could walk, or so the family story goes. Growing up in Wellington and the Wairarapa, he spent his summer holidays crutching sheep and shooting possums. His first career was plumbing – a trade that taught him to think and create in three dimensions. After his apprenticeship he spent five years travelling overseas and returned home with a renewed passion for art and design. He graduated with a Bachelor of Design in 2003, and has been a full-time sculptor ever since.
Crawford uses a range of materials – from laser-cut steel to taxidermy. The sources of his inspiration are just as varied: the Wairarapa bush, the vibrant cultures of Central America, the woodworking techniques he learned from his boat builder father, the contradictions of New Zealand’s colonial past, the stories of Edgar Allen Poe and the paintings of Bill Hammond. One of the highlights of Crawford’s career to date was the 2015 commission ‘Waiting for Hammond’, a two-metre-tall huia bird sculpture set on a headland overlooking the Irish Sea. It’s a sign that his ideas, although largely home-grown, are relevant on the world stage.
‘It is not the object that defines us – it merely implicates us’ Sean Crawford
Harry Culy is a Wellington-based photographer who predominantly works with a large format view camera to observe life in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia, and is particularly inspired by the Antipodean Gothic Art movement. After graduating from Massey University, Culy has frequently exhibited across New Zealand and Australia, and was the recipient of the 2018 Peter Turner Scholarship in Photography. Recent solo exhibitions include Event Horizon with Parlour Projects 2018, Rose Hill as part of Projects 2018 at the Auckland Art Fair and Evidence at China Heights, Sydney in 2017. He also has a small press photobook company called Bad News Books.
After a career in HR and banking Management, I attended an art school in Sydney and there I attempted my first oil painting. I knew instantly that the luminosity of the oil paint with its gloss, vibrancy and sensuous colours was for me and 20 years on that hasn’t changed.
I love to paint our landscape and its relationship with land, sea and sky. Sometimes I am very abstract and free and sometimes there is a little realism incorporated into my paintings. But in the main my process is to experiment with the paint allowing the painting to evolve. Where a painting ends up is not always intentional, but what is intentional is the idea of capturing or suggesting a memory of a place in our subconscious. Land forms and markings mainly come from my imagination and I enjoy playing with layers, building up, parring back, scraping and excavating parts to reveal colours underneath then repainting over using a variety of tools to create movement, mood and effect. My current work explores abstract seas and land forms mostly derived from my imagination but inspired by our beautiful country.
I have exhibited in established galleries around New Zealand, been invited to exhibit internationally and have works in private collections and corporates here and overseas. I have also organised and curated many art exhibitions for fundraising, am a co-founder of ARTrove, ARThouse Wadestown and am an art curator for The Mary Potter Hospice in Wellington.
Jody Hope Gibbons is a contemporary New Zealand painter with works held in private collections here and throughout the world.
Born and bred in beautiful Northland, Jody Gibbons is her name originally, but she uses her family name of Hope Gibbons as her artist signature to honour the passing of her father.
She has spent a considerable amount of time being privately tutored and has completed several Mastery Contemporary Painting courses in Auckland. She has recently been published in “New Zealand’s Favourite Artists” Volume 2, plus has been featured in lifestyle publications such as “NZ Life and Leisure” magazine.
The current body of works explores the materiality of paint - it pushes the boundaries of traditional painting practice and techniques. It exploits the use of paint, rust, inks, leaf and varnish. This work is ever-changing and currently becoming bolder, colourful and more gestural, however the recurring reference back to the land is now becoming evident.
Sarah Hall paints for the pure joy of it from her garage in Te Awanga, Hawkes Bay. She studied at the Putney School of Art in London and, over many years, the Inverlochy Art School in Wellington as well as doing various courses in the United States. She has been a participant in a number of group exhibitions in the Wellington region since 2004.
I am a professionally working artist living in Eastbourne. I would describe myself as a multi disciplinary artist, as I am at ease working in several different genres. Painting, assemblage art, collage and photography. Although my genres can change it is always dictated by my passion for finding the right avenue to explore and express my vision.
Inspiration is constantly fed to me by my environment: The seasons, the sea, the coastline, the bush, what I am reading, poetry, music, flora and fauna and my love of life.
Jason’s paintings capture the affinity we as New Zealanders have with the land.
Jason’s deeply textured paintings evoke nostalgia for a more innocent past whilst challenging you to contemplate what the future may hold.
His work explores identity, time and place.
Jason’s work has featured in many New Zealand publications and he has exhibited widely. He has work in major private and corporate collections, both nationally and internationally.
He has been selected for several major art awards, including the Norsewear and Waikato Art awards and the Rosl art UK travel scholarship.
In 2009 he has had a solo show at Mercedez Benz Wellington Star as the Artist in Residence at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School.
jasonhicks@paradise.net.nz
Nicki Manthel graduated with a Degree in Fine Art from Elam, Auckland in 2004. Since then she has exhibited regularly in both New Zealand and Melbourne, most recently with a solo exhibition at The New Zealand Academy of Fine Art in Wellington in 2017 and at Railway Street Gallery, Auckland in February 2018.
Her solo exhibitions in 2014 at Carbon Black Gallery, Melbourne and The Artists Room, Dunedin in 2015 both sold out. The works focused on larger-than-life flowers and plants painted in oil on linen and silver leaf. Her work is enjoyed across the world from London to Sydney. It has featured in many high-profile settings such as NZ House and Garden, on the set of Shortland Street and as a commission of over forty paintings for the Hilton Hotel apartments, Kawarau, Queenstown. Her work expresses a love of the natural world, a fascination with light and a passion for expressive paint.
Nicki returned to Wellington two and a half years ago after six years living in Melbourne. She now combines her busy painting practice with her role as Development Manager for City Gallery Wellington.
Sue has been creating art for the past twenty five years using mixed media such as watercolour, acrylics, oil, gold leaf, resin, found objects, printing inks, and whatever else she can find lying around. Sue often recycles and uses a variety of techniques to complete her works.
Print making is Sue’s passion. She loves experimenting with different printing processes and often uses a variety of printing processes on one piece of art.
At present Sue is working on a variety of themes. The ANZAC s, a fascination with historic journeys, New Zealand’s native birds and insects and works that relate to Sues upbringing in rural New Zealand... In many of Sue’s works, there is a connection between all of these themes.
Sue has completed a Diploma of Art and Creativity (Honours) at The Learning Connexion.
Many of Sue’s works are in collections in New Zealand and abroad. Sue works part time at Te Papa, Wellington.
If one were to identify a unifying theme for Martinson’s practice, the issue of space and time would present itself like an enduring continuum. His nimble interpretation of Einstein’s space/time theory is illustrated through the playful conceptual experimentation of a fish in a light-bulb. Martinson acknowledges the cryptic impossibility of fully grasping Eintein’s concepts and attempts to capture the superior logic through the visual representation of time and space contained in a light-bulb. He explains, “the space of the bulb is the time the fish have [space and time are one thing]. Each of us exists as if in a bulb, limited by its boundaries ... but giving off reflected light that carries information out into the universe for ever.” Martinson’s succinct explanation and exquisite visual prompts make an impossibly lofty concept accessible to the learned and naïve viewer alike. The generous didactic function of these works affirms both the visual and conceptual charm of images and content.
While still studying, Neil was a founding member of City Group, making a series of experimental films and photographic installations including Pier, and North-South Project, which was selected for the National Art Gallery’s 1986 survey exhibition ‘Content/Context’. Neil’s solo exhibitions at public galleries include Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, City Gallery Wellington, Sarjeant Gallery Whanganui, Artspace Auckland and Millennium Art Gallery Blenheim. Neil has participated in many group exhibitions at major institutions, including ‘Pua- Wai o Nga-i Tahu’, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, ‘Public/Private Tumatanui/Tumataiti: The 2nd Auckland Triennial’, Auckland Art Gallery, ‘Telecom Prospect 2004’, City Gallery Wellington, ‘Toi Te Papa: Art of a Nation’, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington and ‘Mortality’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Melbourne. In November 1999 ‘The Vault: Neil Pardington’ opened at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication. ‘The Vault: Neil Pardington’ is touring throughout New Zealand until 2012. Neil exhibits regularly at Suite Wellington, Jonathan Smart Gallery Christchurch, McNamara Gallery Photography Whanganui and Nadene Milne Gallery Arrowtown. He has recently joined GrantPirrie Gallery in Sydney.
Neil is a director of MAP Film Productions. He has produced, written and directed a number of short films, including Losing Sleep, Chinese Whispers and The Dig, selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. In 2003 Neil produced the feature film For Good with director Stuart McKenzie.
Neil is also the founding director of Eyework Design. Eyework has been the recipient of New Zealand’s top design awards including the Designer’s Institute of New Zealand’s Stringer Award, and Best Book at the Spectrum Print Book Design Awards. In 2004 Eyework merged with Base Two, where Neil now works as a creative director.
Neil studied at Elam School of Fine Arts and has a BFA from University of Auckland. He is of Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Kati Waewae Ma-ori and Pa-keha descent and lives in Wellington Aoteroa New Zealand.
Donna-Marie Patterson is currently studying towards a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury. A re-occurring theme within her practice is the fragility of the West Coast and Canterbury environs (with specific focus on water, rivers and glaciers), and the unease regarding man’s impact upon these environments.
She has been a finalist in numerous awards such as The Wallace Art Award in 2016 & 2017, as well as being a recipient of Merit Awards at the Parkin Drawing Prize in 2016 & 2018, and Creative New Zealand Funding in 2016.
Patterson’s solo exhibitions in 2017 include: Inner Reflections, Nelson and CORNER project space, Auckland. Recent group shows range from PG Gallery, Christchurch, 2018 and The Academy of Fine Arts Wellington, 2017 & 2018.
Max Patté studied at the Wimbledon School of Art in London (1997-2000) and was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 2008. British-born Max has been based in Wellington, New Zealand for the past 10 years creating a body of work that includes both sculpture and Lightworks. Max is well known for his iconic sculpture Solace in the Wind located on the Wellington waterfront and his larger than life cast iron horses The Frolic and the Fancy found at the Hills Golf Club & Sculpture Park in Queenstown.. Having acquired corporate patrons and collectors throughout the world, including the likes of Sir Michael Hill, Charles Saatchi, Stephen Fry, Sir Richard Taylor, and Sir Ian McKellen. Max is quickly becoming one of New Zealand’s most successful artists.
Pearce completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003, majoring in sculpture at Whanganui Quay School of Fine Arts and has exhibited regularly in New Zealand and Australia since.
His work has featured in shows discussing sculpture in New Zealand at City Art Gallery, Sergeant Gallery, Suter Gallery and Whakatāne Gallery. He has work held in the public and private collections.
His work ‘Great Grandfather Clock’ won the 2009 Waikato youth award, his work Mergar won the Moly Morpeth Canaday Award in 2014, and in 2016 Stone Age Eight Gauge won the Number 8 Wire Award.
He was selected by Warwick Brown for his collectors guide ‘Seen this Century’, which features 100 contemporary New Zealand artists.
Pearce’s art explores memory and reconciles it with a recent and com¬mon ‘ancestor’ to us all: childhood.
He strives to make visible the quirks and tragedies of our mind’s recording machinations, to materialize the emotional states that can cripple our bodies, and which often distort the way we record time and memory.
The nature of this internallandscape is of interest to Pearce; his sculptures may exist within his internal world, but they also seek to co-exist as time-travelers in our own.
His recent work employs foundobjects that are reshaped into forms suggestive of scientific apparatus or adjunct experiments. Works shift from onematerial to another, changing form and shape — shifting as if in a slow state of transmutation.
The assemblage work of Pearce regularly features rock like formations, which often mimic everyday objects such as furniture or geological structures.
He is a New Zealand based sculptor who works with wood, stone, metal and found objects.
Deans approach to art is firmly from the Lowbrow camp, he believes art doesn’t have to be obscure or elitist but should challenge and evoke a response and what’s more positive than a smile.
A commercial illustrator for the past 25 years, Dean has enjoyed working with a diverse range of clients both in New Zealand and internationally.
He has always worked on personal projects and in recent years has been investing a great deal of his time into his painting. His work appears in a number of prestigious private collections. Including the James Wallace
trust and the Museum Hotel. Dean is represented in Auckland by Smyth Galleries.
Selected group exhibitions
2017 Paemanu: Nohoaka Toi. Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA) Ōtautahi (Christchurch).
2016 Wellington Regional Arts Review, (winner), Expressions, Upper Hutt.
2015 The Figurative Show, The Vivian, Matakana
2014 Blue Nonage, 30upstairs, Wellington
2014 XXV Group Show, City Art Depot, Christchurch.
2013 The April Group Show, The Vivian, Matakana.
2013 The new Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award, (finalist) Hamilton.
2013 Telling Stories, Elected Artist’s Exhibition, Academy Galleries, Wellington
2012 The new Zealand painting and printmaking Award, (finalist), Hamilton.
2012 Estuary Artworks Exhibition, (finalist), Uxbridge Creative Centre, Howick.
2012 Wellington regional Arts Review, (finalist), Expressions, Upper Hutt.
2011 Bold Horizon Contemporary Art Award, (finalist), Waikato Museum, Hamilton.
2011 Winners, Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Waiheke Island.
2010 Home, Tim Rex Group show, ArtsPost, Hamilton.
2010 COCA Anthony Harper Award 2010, (finalist), Christchurch.
2010 The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award,
(finalist), Hamilton.
2010 The Adam Portraiture Award, (finalist), Wellington.
2010 Easter recollections, Uxbridge Art centre, Howick.
2009 The Art Event, Christchurch City Art Gallery.
2009 COCA Anthony Harper Award 2009, (finalist), Christchurch.
2009 The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award, (finalist), Hamilton.
2008 The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award, (finalist), Hamilton.
2008 Margaret Stoddart Award, COCA, Christchurch.
2008 Mo Tatou The Ngai Tahu Whanui exhibition, The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
2008 COCA Anthony Harper Award 2008, (finalist), Christchurch.
2008 The Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award, (Elizabeth Grierson merit award), Waiheke.
2007 The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award, (finalist), Hamilton.
2007 Norsewear Art New Zealand Contemporary Art Award 2007: Past Winners, Exhibition, Hastings.
2007 COCA Anthony Harper Award 2007, (finalist), Christchurch.
2007 Preview 2007, 40 contemporary New Zealand artists, COCA, Christchurch.
2006 COCA Anthony Harper Award, (finalist), Christchurch.
2006 Hot, invited alumni, The Quay School of the Arts, Whanganui UCOL, Whanganui.
2006 Preview 2006, 40 contemporary New Zealand artists, COCA, Christchurch.
2005 Blanketstitch, Objectspace, Auckland.
2004 Waikato National Art Award, (finalist), Hamilton.
2004 Apart Together, New Zealand MFA candidates, Faculty gallery, RMIT University, Melbourne.
2004 The New Alchemists, National Art Awards exhibition, Artworks in reclaimed materials, COCA, Christchurch.
2004 Strata 2004, MFA graduate exhibition, RMIT City Campus, Melbourne.
Awards
2016 Winner, Wellington Regional Arts Review, Expressions Upper Hutt.
2008 Elizabeth Grierson Merit Award, Walker & Hall Art Award, Waiheke.
2001 Norsewear Art Award, painting, Waipukurau.
Collections
Work is held in private collections in New Zealand and Australia as well as in the collection of Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua, New Zealand, and in the James Wallace Trust.
Catherine, lives on the South Coast of Wellington, where she has painted her semi-abstract landscapes, for 17 Years.
Painting for Catherine is an organic process in many ways. The inspiration comes from our environment, in particular, New Zealand forest and bush scenes.
The execution of each piece, usually evolves from layers of texture, paint and lacquer, resulting in an “organic looking” piece of work. No perfect Lines or brushstrokes to be seen.
Each piece of work starts with an idea and an open-minded vision.
Due to the style and process of Catherine’s painting techniques, some of the movement of paint, and colour distribution is out of her control, and there is a lot of “letting nature take its course”.
Rebecca Rose has worked for the last twenty two years as a sculptor.
Rose’s work is centred on the cyclic nature of life and humanities interconnectedness. In exploring these themes she has created abstract work using metals and alloys. These sculptures are found in public and private collections in New Zealand and internationally.
Recent curated exhibitions include Minqin Desert Sculpture Symposium China 2018, Sculpture by the Sea Perth 2018 & Sydney 2016, NZ Sculpture on Shore 2016, Qingdao China 2015.
Rose lives and works from her home studio, set in the native forest of Titirangi Auckland NZ.
www.rebeccarose.co.nz
Extremely intensified moments of life and time has been a constant theme in Lynne’s work.
Her new botanical series of ceiling-to-floor paintings and lightboxes celebrates the erupting seasons so you can surround yourself in never-ending colour and light.
Lynne has enjoyed a successful exhibiting career for over two decades, both in NZ and internationally.
She has earned a reputation as consistently sought after artist.
www.lynnesandri.co.nz
Instagram: lynne_sandri_artist
Justine Turnbull holds an MFA from Dunedin School of Art, teaches part time and works out of her studio in Wellington.
“My narratives are concerned with equilibrium and it’s inevitable upheaval. The comfortable must always be abandoned for our growth, and these `little deaths’ occur in myriad forms throughout our lives. I refer to work from art history, differentiating and transforming mood using contemporary painting techniques. I attempt to capture the turbulence of these transitions through the physical process of painting.”
Online at https://www.instagram.com/justineturnbullart/?hl=en and at Exhibitions Gallery, Wellington.
Melissa Young has been sculpting since 1997, she works generally in bronze and produces delicate figurative pieces. Melissa enjoys playing around with figures and objects, finding the right balance between the forms, seeing what works or doesn’t. “I think I have always had a knack for spatial awareness - I am the one who packs the luggage when we go away, maximizing the space available in the boot of our car”.
By default Melissa’s inspiration has come from her family… Since becoming a parent, parenthood, the antics of her family and finding the right work/life balance have provided her with a lot of material to draw from. Being creative has allowed Melissa to vent her frustrations in a very healthy way. “A lot of my work is a social commentary on (my) life”. When her pieces are ready to be cast, they are cast using the lost wax method.
Melissa lives and works in Island Bay, Wellington with her husband John and their young daughter. When she is not creating or nagging her family, Melissa enjoys having a free day to stay in her PJs and do absolutely nothing (or maybe read a book).
When examining my paintings, one will notice the frenetic energy that is present throughout the work. Upon investigating more closely, it will become apparent that this activity is the essence of each mark. In this sense, painting is a personal act that works to understand the subject. Whether the subject be that of the internal world of the artist or a literal form of the external world, it is the very translation of thought to form that ignites life within the painting.
As an artist, I use oil paint as a medium to explore this kindred connection that exists between the mark and intention.
Although my practice remains figurative, it must be stressed that the majority of my inspiration stems from an internal source, something that is not driven by the literal subject. This has resulted in an impasto application of oil paint where variables such as speed, force and motion activate endless possibilities within each mark. Painting has come to be about capturing what occurs within the present moment. Whether this is from within the time to mentally prepare and “enter into” the painting, to the physical contact made of brush onto canvas.
The artwork itself is a result of a conducted spiritual process, where varying brushwork reflects the subtle layers of an authentic human response.
Catherine Cattanach is a portrait and fine art photographer based in Wellington. She is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography, and was named NZIPP Wellington Photographer of the Year in 2018, NZIPP Creative Photographer of the Year in 2016 and NZIPP Classic Portrait Photographer of the Year in 2014. She has represented New Zealand in the portrait section of the World Photographic Cup in 2014, and she was also a portrait finalist in the 2016 international HeadOn Photo Festival in Sydney. Recent exhibitions include Lustre (2016) and Eryngium (2018).
Whanganui artist Rachael studied at Quay School of Fine Arts 2000 – 2003 and majored in printmaking.
She graduated in 2003 with high distinction. In 2015 she completed her Masters Degree in Maori Visual Arts with First Class Honours.
Rachael continues her art making in printmaking and painting, and more recently in 3D construction and mixed media works.
She has participated in numerous group and solo shows throughout New Zealand, and has work in many private collections both nationally and overseas.
www.rachaelgarland.com
It has been over 15 years since I first became a professional artist after graduating from my Illustration Degree. Creative Arts has long run in my family as my great, great Uncle James Brown was NZ’s first real political cartoonist from 1852 and my passion for painting was largely influenced by my Father with his own talent for oil painting and Aviation Art.
“Rochelle creates ’larger than life’ flower paintings accentuating the beauty of flowers in close-up. Her work never fails to capture the colour and depth of her subject matter, sometimes bold, sometimes delicate and always beautiful. These calm and thought-provoking canvases are a delight and the talent that she shows capturing her subject is quite extraordinary.
-Linda Sell, Gallery Director, Pond Gallery, London
