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Ahsin Ahsin is based in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. He has exhibited in Auckland, the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel as well as Melbourne, and has completed an extensive number of commissions. His works are vibrant and dynamic, influenced by 80s and 90s sci-fi films and street art. He incorporates artistic and pop culture references which his imagination distils into fantastic creatures and sigils, graffiti marks and gestures suspended in hyperspace. He works his neo-pop style across a variety of surfaces that can be seen on the street in mural form and in galleries.
Auckland-based artist Michael Anderson graduated from Hungry Creek Art School in 2011 with an interest in action painting and abstract expressionism. He paints primarily on plywood using oil and water-based house paints, sometimes incorporating foil, wood offcuts or chunks of dried paint, frequently exposing the ply underneath with polyurethane. Paintings are always done on the floor, often composed in a thick pool of poured polyurethane. He uses dripping and pouring, with an eye for material interactions, waiting for the paint to reach a certain viscosity for the desired effect to take place. Michael has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the Auckland region since 2012.
Ronald Andreassend’s creativity blurs the boundaries between visual arts, craft, design and fashion, resulting in an output which ranges from artwork, sculptures, jewellery, costume, homewares and residential fixtures, to organising artist collaborations and events. Ronald`s ideas are drawn from family stories, his culture, interests, experimentation and objects that sometimes have no reason to exist other than to amuse and intrigue. Over the last two years he has been exploring Pacifica Auckland in culture, art, society and politics. It has been an eye opener, delving into areas that few are privileged to see. He has participated on many projects, as a photographer, artist and designer as well as simply volunteering or enjoying the warmth of Pacific culture and people.
Blake Beckford is an artist based in Auckland. Since completing his Bachelor of Design and Visual Arts in 2013, his work has been purchased for various collections, including the Arts House Trust. Blake currently experiments with hand painted, digitally drawn laser cut shapes. He utilises colours, shadows, distance and light to create aesthetically pleasing multi-layered artworks.
Sean Beldon is an Auckland artist best known for his large New Zealand landscape paintings. His style is mostly painterly with a modernist feel. Over the past decade, he has been photographing and painting landscapes, from the far north to the deep south. Travelling is essential to his art, providing the inspiration and material he needs for his landscape paintings. He paints exclusively scenes of places that he has been to, taking the time to photograph images that tell the story of the land. Using his viewfinder as a primary canvas, his compositions originate from his landscape photography.
Tanya Blong is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist. She graduated from Hungry Creek Art and Craft School in 2006, followed by further studies at Browne School of Art. Her figurative work speaks to a moment in time; hot summer days provide the backdrop to society at leisure. Encompassing the state of being idle, Tanya makes a dual commentary, an immersion into a slow sensory world, while also floating ideas of the luxury of time, access and inclusion. Her work is held in the Arts House Trust collection.
Originally from Cape Town, Julia Budden lives on Auckland’s North Shore. Her art is inspired by local flora, walking tracks and beaches, a love of working with colour and nature for wellbeing and happiness, and her background in psychology, landscape design and ecotherapy. She works mainly in acrylic and oil pastel, and uses cyanotype print making processes to capture plants and natural textures with her abstract, colour-filled style. Each piece usually starts with layers of acrylic paint in vibrant colour palettes, then cyanotype or watercolour washes are applied. The results are often unpredictable: experimental and moody, or ethereal with their washes of deep indigo blues, earthy umbers and white plant silhouettes.
Brazilian-born, Robbi Carvalho lived in Portugal and Angola before choosing Aotearoa as her home. Her careers in architecture and jewellery design refined her artistic style and technique, but it is painting which allows her to express herself most freely. A visual storyteller who celebrates the feminine, Robbi’s art invites you to take a meditative dive and have an encounter with your intuition and more subtle energies, a place where nature cares and heals.
United Kingdom-born Jamie Chapman settled in Whangārei in 1989. In 2005 he moved to Auckland to study at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, completing his master’s degree at Elam School of Fine Arts in 2012. Jamie was awarded the University of Auckland Joe Raynes Scholarship in 2012, and in 2013 was the winner of the National Youth Art Award run by ArtsPost in Hamilton. His work is held in collections which include the Arts House Trust.
Clinton Christian is an award-winning contemporary New Zealand artist who creates unique, bold and relatable modernist works. He uses a variety of styles, themes and mediums, putting his own personality into his art to inspire happiness, curiosity and memories. Clinton’s works are generally large canvas paintings or wood panel and resin pieces, some of which approach sculpture. His work has a very graphic style featuring composition, colour and contrast. Recently Clint has developed a new collection of work dubbed 'Retrovision' which dives into his youthful nostalgic memories of the 1970s and 1980s, also referencing modern themes or local pop culture.
Jodi Clark first studied in Whanganui and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2002. Whanganui-based, her current works are an exploration of colour, modernism, decoration and the syntax of shapes. Using line and composition, she makes strong statements of form and the complexities of visual language. Her work process, intrinsic to the end product, involves making hundreds of sketches in an uncalculated, free-flowing way, each one informing the next, then using a select few as a starting point for paintings. Shape and composition have a fascinating trans-cultural and trans-historical aspect and Jodi appreciates the concept that symbolism, shape and colour can be interpreted according to the viewer's life experience. She therefore prefers the viewer to decide what she or he is seeing, rather than ask what it should be.
Brenda Clews is a self-taught artist. She has been passionate about art since childhood and is driven to learn more about her craft. Revelling in the freedom to experiment, painting elicits almost childlike wonder and excitement in her. It has also become a way to remember and document beautiful moments and imaginings; Brenda’s best work is inspired by focusing on the present and mindfulness. Her style continues to evolve, but she still uses thick lush textures with gestural brushstrokes to create a more abstracted final work. She works with slow-drying acrylics, which allow a longer manipulation timeframe and are closer to oils in texture, colour and saturation. Each piece has multiple layers and develops organically. The observer is invited to feel an emotion and draw on their own connection with nature rather than just looking at the image or colour. Brenda’s work has been purchased by collectors around the world and throughout Aotearoa.
Vicki Comrie-Moore has been working with clay since she was 11 years old, when she was first taken by the medium and by sculpture. Her style is free-flowing and natural, using flora and fauna as inspiration, with splashes of colour glazes and other mediums bringing the pieces to life. Vicki is largely self taught and enjoys the freedom of working from a home studio on her farm.
Heidi Cooney is a contemporary artist and mother of three young children who lives and works in Mt Eden. She is inspired by the natural beauty of Aotearoa New Zealand and loves to bring her appreciation of nature indoors through her landscape and botanical paintings. She enjoys the challenge of capturing the natural world and her paintings convey a sense of peace and gratitude for the beautiful environment in which we live. Heidi paints primarily in acrylics on canvas and wood panel, loving the versatility of the medium.
Bryn Corkery is an Auckland-based multimedia artist. His work is inspired by the physical world and our relationship with it. The digital age is altering perception: reality remains the same but our perspectives are continually changing. While we are more connected, we are becoming more disconnected from our environment. Certain people and places are ignored on the recommendations of our screens and what others tell us through them. Bryn communicates his recommended perspectives through his art visually, without any pushed notifications.
Elise De Silva is an award-winning artist who works from her Howick studio. Her primary medium is watercolour, although she occasionally works with oils and acrylics. Strongly drawn to dramatic light and water themes, Elise finds that there is something dynamic and magical about water and its light bending properties; painting it is a constant challenge which offers infinite material. President of the Howick Art Group and a passionate plein air painter, Elise has also participated in a number of community art projects.
Helen Dean is a Titirangi-based abstract painter. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts (Honours, Fine Art) in the United Kingdom in 1995, returning to painting in 2015. Working from her native bush surrounded home studio, Helen always starts with colour, developing her paintings intuitively over weeks or months with the gradual addition of layers of thick and thin paint. She explores a range of different marks, some gestural, some more managed, often including ambiguous soft forms and areas where the first layers remain visible. As a work progresses, she aims to balance light and shade, looseness and control. Since she began to paint again, she has had a regular painting practice and gallery presence, and has sent her work to collectors around the world.
Catherine Dunn is a full-time professional artist based in Kerikeri. She has been a practising artist for over three decades and her main areas of interest are painting, sculpture and printmaking. She works in acrylic, oil and cold wax mediums as well as inks and charcoal. Catherine uses printmaking techniques to extend and add variety to her work, and also enjoys building assemblage sculpture from recycled wood and metal as a departure from painting. She is motivated and inspired by her connection to the environment and people around her and how they shape the various layers of awareness and growth within herself and others. She believes artistic progression expands in direct proportion to one's courage. With this in mind, she tries to increase her understanding of materials and techniques by taking the time to experiment, enabling her to discover new ways of working, a process essential to her practice and development as an artist.
Stu Duval is a professional artist, illustrator and author. Born in the shadow of Christchurch Cathedral, he now resides on the Hibiscus Coast in Auckland. He draws his inspiration from the landscape and bird life within it, often capturing the latter in a whimsical, surrealist manner.
Ngāruahine, Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau-Ā-Apanui
Hikurangi Edwards lives in Wellington. Her work is hand-carved into layers of paint, a technique she calls mahi whakairo peita or paint carving - a modern take on traditional Māori wood carving. She draws on inspiration from her culture and is often guided by her tīpuna to represent their stories and other passions that are meaningful to her. All of her pieces are original.
Florence Egasse is a Christchurch-based self-taught artist who has always had the need to create. As a child, she discovered art in the galleries and museums of Paris, but it was her time studying composition and technique in Bayeux that truly sparked her interest in painting. She went on to explore acrylic painting in London. Florence paints striking abstracts, vibrant ensembles of florals and contemporary landscapes. Drawing inspiration from nature, children's drawings, travel and interior design, her work is experimental and intuitive, a bold and playful style which is constantly evolving as she sets no limitations on her creativity. Each of her paintings is unique and joyous.
Fiona Ehn is a mostly self-taught New Zealand artist based in Rodney, north of Auckland. She creates beautiful, unique, mixed-media artworks which have lots of texture, bold colours - and injections of humour. Fiona describes her style as contemporary, informal, feminine and a little quirky, and she is continually exploring new ways to bring further texture and interest into her constantly evolving repertoire. Fiona aims to produce art that brings a smile to the face of the viewer. Her work is held by local galleries and she has also exhibited in community exhibitions locally.
Val Enger’s paintings are inspired by the tumultuous nature of the New Zealand landscape. She enjoys the way colour and form vie with each other, creating natural compositional rhythms. Colour profoundly affects all aspects of her life, especially emotions and moods, and she aims to reflect this in her paintings. Organic forms and shapes are apparent to Val everywhere, connecting her to nature. The essential, biomorphic forms of the land evoke freedom and an opportunity to play and explore, in the search for a visual ‘truth’ that finds its place between the observed and the deeply personal, transitory nature of experience. Val combines a process of application with a reductive approach that, through editing, moves the work into an autonomous space of individual expression.
Inge Flinte is a Melbourne-based abstract artist. She draws inspiration from her background as the daughter of immigrant parents and her experience living in five different countries. The concept of home is a central theme in Inge's work. She begins by taking notes, collecting the essence of the world in all of its myriad forms - marks, shadows, colours, and textures - which inform her creative process. Working primarily on canvas, Inge uses pigment, acrylic, oil pastels and paints, often incorporating natural dyeing techniques as a base layer in her work. Committed to environmental sustainability, she includes in her studio practice botanical dyeing, removing acrylic from wastewater and making her own paint from pigment. Inge’s work has been exhibited in Japan, America, the UK and New Zealand.
Arwen Flowers is a mixed-media artist. Working from her Helensville studio, she is currently doing a Master of Visual Arts, investigating identity and culture through family stories associated with handcrafted domestic items. Arwen combines dressmaking tissue, graphite, charcoal, foil and paint to create her pieces. Her awards to date include the Inspirational New Zealand Category Winner and Supreme Winner in The Trusts Greater Auckland Art Awards in 2019; being selected as a finalist in the Emerging Artist Awards at the Upstairs Gallery in 2021; and being named the Supreme Winner at the Kumeu Arts Art Awards, also in 2021.
Hazel Foot lives in Auckland. She paints expressionist landscapes intended to prompt the viewer to recall personal experiences with nature. Her inspiration comes from the natural environment, perhaps beginning with a photograph or memory which is developed to depict landscapes unspoiled by human interference, emphasising the role of nature in wellbeing and the importance of conservation. She builds up her work using layers of acrylic paint to produce texture and depth, focusing on the use of colour and light to create atmosphere.
Tina Frantzen began painting in 2005, training at Artstation with Matthew Browne. A member of the Railway Street Gallery and Studios Collective, she has been producing and exhibiting painting and photography ever since. Tina’s works are painted intuitively by a process of revealing, a gradual discovery of previously unknown details which surprises and often delights. Tina was a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards in 2015 and her paintings are held in private art collections.
Deborah Fuller has been an artisan since 2000 and currently resides in Little River on Banks Peninsula. Her work is immediately recognisable for its unique style and its blend of photography and mixed media painting. Captured moments of light and cast shadows are combined with textured landscapes of turquoise blue and burnt umber, frequently accompanied by a theme of nostalgia and recollection. Settings which feature dwellings, vacant chairs and objects convey a story of calm and stillness with an underlying tone of ambiguity, inviting the viewer to lend their own interpretation.
Matakana-based artist Jody Hope Gibbons is a contemporary abstract painter. Her practice explores colour, gesture, layering and light effects. Working in mixed media, she incorporates a range of materials in her pieces from acrylic paint to crayon, rust, inks, leaf and varnish. Jody’s current body of work explores the materiality of paint, pushing the boundaries of traditional painting practice and techniques. Ever-changing and currently becoming colourful, more gestural and bolder, this work retains its recurring reference back to the land. She credits her style to her early career in the design field; having completed a range of series, each piece she produces offers strong design elements and recognisable compositions that give her work cohesion.
Wendy Hannah (English, Ngāti Awa, Te Arawa) is an Auckland-based contemporary artist educated at Elam. In her practice she has focused on working with colour, reflective/refractive materiality and recently, light. Wendy’s new series of installations echo her upbringing by the sea with its ever-changing dispersive prism. Inspired by tukutuku, the traditional Māori craft which features weaving and binding and also symbolizes the whānau, she presents it in its most abstract form, an ‘X’. Wendy adds a further traditional element by making her own paint and gives her forms dynamic hues and coloured shapes, creating works that weave together tradition, place and ideology. The signature ‘X’, with its vibrant perspex panels, reflects and refracts the surrounding environment like a kaleidoscope of mirrors, creating beacons of light akin to a Fresnel lighthouse lens. This new, immersive series captivates, morphing continuously from day to night.
Mt Albert Grammar School alumnus Hugo Harvey has taught painting in Auckland schools and architectural media and design at Auckland University, as well as working as a freelance artist. Since completing his Master of Architecture in 2021, he has been employed at Isthmus Group as an architectural graduate, designing educational and civic spaces. He is fascinated by the intersection of art and architecture and how these converging disciplines influence the process of place-making and identity. His paintings often explore the dynamic between figures and space, drawing inspiration from close friends and his time studying architecture while travelling..
Levi Hawken is a New Zealand artist and sculptor who began his career in the mid-1990s graffitiing the walls of Auckland City. Most of his graffiti work is no longer visible, yet its influence continues in his more traditional paintings. Over the last two decades, Levi’s work has moved from public walls and spaces to more private, conventional settings. He has expanded his medium and subject matter through painting, drawing and sculptural work to ensure that more permanent keepsakes of his art exist. Now working primarily with cast concrete, glass and metals, he creates interacting forms and voids. Levi is heavily influenced by Brutalism, urban architecture and a desire to express an appreciation for the universe’s unknown forces through symbols and monolithic sculptures worthy of reverence.
Michael Hawkins is a Melbourne-based New Zealand artist. His practice is currently divided into two specific areas: limited edition works and original paintings. Both aspects of his practice address how meaning can be generated from the visual interaction that takes place between sign and signage - between the familiar and the unknown, through common-place motifs such as a snake or a lump of wood, or more ambiguous imagery creation and juxtaposition. Michael’s limited-edition artworks are drawing-based, utilising silkscreen printing and occasionally, painting processes. While these works are concerned with individual themes or subjects, they are most often busy, employing image saturation strategies to question the surfeit of information which we are assailed with on a daily basis through media. In 2020 Michael received the Parkin Drawing Prize Merit Award for ‘Student Debt’.
Nelson-born Angela Heemskerk has been selling her oil paintings since she was a high school student. Her work consists mostly of house portraits and private and business commissions. Angela’s inspiration comes from the simple beauty that can be observed anywhere - in trees, flowers, water, clouds, sunsets and villas. She is currently nurturing young creatives, teaching children's art classes on Auckland's North Shore.
Natalie Holland is a Wellington-based textile artist who produces bright and colourful textural pieces that depict the beautiful designs and patterns used in hiapo (Niuean tapa cloth), an important part of her Niuean heritage. She makes her pieces using a punch needle, a technique that traces its history back to nineteenth century rug hooking. Natalie’s work features both botanical and geometric elements in vibrant and often unexpected colour combinations.
John Horner was born in England in 1944. He studied at Elam School of Fine Arts where he was a student of Colin McCahon, Garth Tapper and Robert Ellis. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) from Elam in 1965 and completed his Master of Fine Arts (Hons) in 2003. A teacher of secondary school art until the early 1980s and a senior lecturer at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design until 2013, John has now retired to concentrate on painting full-time. His expressive, painterly style is inspired by New Zealand’s rugged landscape and sharp light contrasts in cityscapes. John has contributed to the Artists in Eden event for many years and recently did an artist's residency at Karekare homestead. He has been a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards three times and his work is in many private New Zealand collections, including The Arts House Trust.
Kristin Hyde is a full-time Auckland-based mixed media and resin artist who enjoys working in various mediums. A passionate creative who also enjoys silversmithing and creating original art jewellery, she describes herself as an intuitive painter, and her art ranges from whimsical to abstract. Kristin has a passion for colour and texture and finds it humbling to watch people connect with her work. She is currently represented by several galleries in New Zealand, has exhibited in major public exhibitions, and her work can be found in homes around the world.
Bev Jones has been making domestic ware pottery for over 4 decades. Her passion for ceramics led to a 25-year career teaching the craft to adult students. She also trained as a florist in her sixties and loved the creativity of working with flowers. Bev returned to full time pottery over 6 years ago and is very pleased to see it enjoying a resurgence in popularity. In her practice, she especially enjoys wheel work and has become interested lately in hand work, making figurines and heads. Making all of her own glazes, each of her pieces is unique.
A small production potter with a penchant for vase making, Jacqueline Kampen's pieces range from the traditional to more quirky forms. Auckland-based and a member of Auckland Studio Potters, her vases can be displayed on their own or in a group. Using stoneware clay, all of the vases are made on the wheel, glazed and high-fired, making them ideal to hold water for fresh flowers.
An artist for over 35 years, Helen Keen works from her West Auckland home studio using painting techniques she developed as a ceramicist. She manipulates texture using encaustic wax, mixed media, acrylic and oil, exploring abstraction, colour, gestures and mark making. Drawing on Claude Monet’s concept of “the illusion of an endless whole”, Helen’s work is impressionistic and free-flowing, exploring deeper layers and new possibilities while resisting rules and boundaries. Encaustic wax drives her art practice: an amazing, unpredictable and little used material made from beeswax and tree resin. Heating it is pivotal to the blending of colours and the creation of textures and expressions, a process of revealing, covering and uncovering with scratching and sgraffito, embedding and transferring images and objects. She uses encaustic techniques in her latest floral series, painting in molten wax and blending with flame rather than brushwork alone.
Jasmine Keir divides her time between her new home on Whangaroa Harbour and her beloved Southland. The warm tropical beaches contrast with the crisp magnificent mountains and skies; the largest boulder is made up of a tiny grain of sand, a new world juxtaposed between them. This is conveyed with ease onto a canvas of pristine copper. Jasmine loves to scrape, layer, collide and experiment with her art, emulating the cycles of a life well-lived.
Natalie Kere is a Nelson-based multi-disciplinary artist. Her work represents her connection to Māori culture, the indigenous people of the land. She uses contemporary materials to emulate the natural characteristics of pounamu (greenstone), a stone prized for its beauty and resilience, binding ancestral influence with modern practice. Her work is a fusion of resin and paint, encased within metal, accentuating the fine details of the stone to give the viewer an immediate understanding of its intricacies.
Joanna King’s background in art goes back to her work as an art coordinator in a Christchurch art gallery 30 years ago. Now, with older children away studying and only one at home, she has been able to commit to painting full-time. After completing a MoMA course online, she began selling her work through her website and Instagram during the lockdowns and has enjoyed a positive response from clients all around the country. She paints places in Aotearoa that touch her heart and spirit, most recently using recycled coffee sacking floated in shadow box frames.
Toni Kingstone creates in her home studio overlooking Mount Pirongia in the Waikato. A full-time artist since 2019, her main body of work blends fluid acrylics, metallic pigments and resin. From her initial concept, she is led by the flow of the paint itself, guiding the direction with intuitive ‘action’ painting, adding or removing elements with more paint, palette knife or brushwork. She aims to give a New Zealand twist to her magical realist style by adding detail highlighting the everyday, expressed within fantastical dream-like landscapes. Toni’s works have been shown in a range of art shows and exhibitions and her paintings can be found in the homes of collectors and art lovers both in New Zealand and internationally.
Keum Sun Lee is a Korean-born potter and ceramic artist. She has exhibited successfully in Korea, Austria, Croatia and New Zealand and won significant awards in New Zealand, Austria and Korea. In 2013 Keum Sun was selected as an artist-lecturer in the International Academic Program by the 7th Kaorean International Ceramic Biennale Korea. She was a finalist in the National Contemporary Art Award at Waikato Museum in 2014, won the First Prize and Merit Awards in the Greater Auckland Art Award & Exhibition in 2018, and won the Portage Ceramic Awards Premier Award in 2018. In New Zealand Keum Sun has exhibited in Sculpture OnShore, at the Arataki Visitor Centre and at West Coast Gallery in Piha. Employing 10th and 15th century Korean pottery techniques, she has adapted tradition and added colour to give her creations a contemporary twist. Keum Sun won the People's Choice Award in Portage Ceramic Awards in this year.
Catrina Lloyd paints full-time from her home studio at Muriwai. Her work is a gestural, sensory response to her coastal environment, and relates to mapping in an abstract way. There is a strong sense of movement in Catrina’s work, capturing the raw west coast energy that inspires her. Playing with the balance between opacity and translucency using colour, texture and layering is key to her process. With a preference for mark-making, Catrina uses acrylics, inks and dry mediums, exploring different ways to interpret what she sees and feels. Painting is like a dance for her, as she searches for an unconscious response, releasing control of the finished piece and allowing one mark to lead to the next.
Hamish Macaulay is an award-winning printmaker & painter based in Kāpiti. He recently returned home to Aotearoa New Zealand after 14 years in London. The subjects in his art range from conceptual abstracts to figurative landscapes and seascapes. With his love of nature and his surroundings, there is usually a nature-based narrative underpinning his work. His art is held in public collections such as Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, and private collections internationally including the UK, Europe, USA, South Africa, and Australasia. He is currently represented by galleries throughout the North Island and in London and Essex.
Barbara MacKinnon works intuitively from memory and imagination, often absorbed by the process of examining light and space, employing a visual negotiation between fact and fiction. References to flora act as a metaphor for the transience of life and help her to discover new painting strategies. Barbara’s current investigative journey involves testing ideas, extending her mark-making vocabulary, and regenerating imagery.
Anita Madhav is an Auckland-based, self-taught realist artist who has been painting for over 20 years. Her passion for art stems from a lifelong love of creativity and exploration. Anita's work is characterised by a unique mixed-medium approach that showcases her versatility and willingness to experiment with new techniques and materials. She balances subtle shades, light forms, and spaces with colour and textural accents. Inspired by New Zealand flowers, her works vividly capture their beauty and essence, creating a sensory experience for viewers. Her art can be found in private collections worldwide, showcasing her talent and passion for her work.
Joanne Mahoney’s mixed media works have evolved over the last few years and can be described as interdisciplinary mixed media. She uses watercolour, acrylics, oil and cold wax medium, collage and the many different processes used in printmaking to create unique artworks. The years Joanne spent living in Asia, as well as currently living in a beautiful coastal environment, also influence her work.
Clare Matthews lives on the coast at Paremata, north of Wellington. Her partially abstracted land and seascapes are inspired by the natural environment and created using acrylic, collage and oil pastels. She is interested in exaggerating the beauty and drama of landscape through the imaginative use of colour, line and a variety of marks and shapes. Clare loves the constant dance with different media: adding, scraping back, scratching into, flooding with paint until led by what begins to emerge. The development of a painting may be slow or fast, but is always rewarding and part of an ongoing cycle where each work gently informs the next. Working from images inside her head rather than photographs, she prefers to enable the viewer to give the painting their own sense of place or memory, strengthening their connection to it.
Sarah Mauger is a specialist art teacher at an Auckland Intermediate school who paints from her home studio in her spare time. As well as producing commissioned work, she exhibits and sells in both Auckland and Wellington. Sarah draws on her background in fashion, makeup artistry and design to inspire her contemporary art work. An intuitive artist who creates unique pieces reflecting her passion for colour and texture, she uses modern street art techniques, incorporating textiles, spray paint and Indian ink to build layers. Her 2022 series represents the Kings, Queens, Princesses and Princes in your life, combining traditional values with the colour of modern living.
Judith Milner is a representational painter who lives and works in Auckland. Her oil paintings depict quintessentially New Zealand scenes which reconnect the viewer with their memories and past experiences and evoke feelings of nostalgia. New Zealand architecture often features in Judith's paintings, with careful renderings of details, materials and proportions, reminding us of the history of the places we know and love and the often overlooked beauty that surrounds us. Other works are loosely inspired by old, informal photographs from the 1970s and 1980s which transport the viewer to another context and allow people to project their own narrative onto the work. In 2021, Judith won the Michael Evans Figurative Award at the Walker and Hall Art Awards for her painting “Pink Summer”.
Rachel Moore paints at her home studio on Auckland’s North Shore. She has been developing her watercolour work since 2019. For the 2023 MAGS Art Show, she is introducing new work which hints at her love of ceramics, includes a touch of retro, and re-works the classic still-life. Experimenting with paint effects, Rachel focuses on colour, form and mark making alongside illustrative hand detail to give depth and contrast. Her new series is suggestive of pop art prints, with watercolours contrasting against bold black detailing. Each piece develops its own trajectory, no matter what the original intention is, allowing her to explore many themes and ideas in her past and present works. Rachel is a regular exhibitor in a number of different national art shows, competitions, art sales and galleries.
Cam Munroe’s large works on canvas speak confidently of texture and gesture - the latter being a preference for mark-making that offer contour to these creations. Works appear simple in composition, however the technique, restraint and problem solving are integral to the successful outcome of her works. Each gesture - balanced between purposeful lines of light and dark - remains. Each mark contributes to the creation of a work that captures a series of thoughts and moments with the ink and medium used. Each form of shape becomes a letter of an alphabet but not each is used as a code. An L or Y shape therefore can represent any letter, hieroglyph or picture element in any combination. Like codices documents, sometimes these are unreadable until they are more closely scrutinised and deciphered. They also must work aesthetically in the composition which is an integral consideration.
Janice Napper is a full-time contemporary artist. From her St Heliers studio she uses a rich high-gloss colour palette to generate vibrant artworks. The fluidity of this self-taught artist’s captivating works, pushing her polymer and resin mediums to the limit, exudes confidence. Like many artists she draws her subject matter from living things, often with the detail stripped away; an increasingly large proportion of her work, however, is now devoted to her love of form and the abstract. Her background in advertising is evident in her cutting-edge creative ideas, combined with a strong understanding of design and composition.
Former Mt Albert resident Zoë Nash has lived in Titirangi for the past four years, working from her garden studio, as well as being actively involved in arts education. A visual artist who works across a diverse range of creative disciplines, her pieces are a colourful, playful and celebratory exploration of mark making, pattern, process, repetition and accumulation - vibrant, joyful and life-affirming. They dance between spaces, between foreground and background, revelation and concealment, then and now. Reflecting her love of nature, Zoë’s works increasingly draw on specific places and selected plant and flower motifs.
Christian Nicolson works as a full-time artist and is based in Auckland. He initially studied design and worked for several years as an art director in advertising roles in New Zealand and London. He loves to paint, sculpt, use photography, create installations, and make films. He has several works in the Arts House Trust collection and has been a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards six times. Christian has also featured in three of Denis Robinson’s art publications including New Zealand’s Favourite Artists Volume 2. He focuses on one solo exhibition a year and has also featured in many group shows such as Sculpture on the Gulf and NZ Sculpture OnShore. Christian has also made an award-winning feature film called ‘This Giant Papier Mâché Boulder is Actually Really Heavy’ (2016). Being creative is king.
Jane Puckey is a Auckland-based contemporary landscape painter celebrated in particular for her paintings of Northland. This area of exceptional natural beauty holds special significance and meaning for her as her family has lived in the Bay of Islands for generations, having settled in the area in the early 1800s. Jane’s inspiration arises from its clear blue skies, the ever-changing hues of the sea and the deep colours lying within the forms of the land, all of which provide a play of contrast in New Zealand’s brilliant light.
Spid Pye is an award-winning photographer. He was largely self-taught until he arrived in London in 1992 and attended the Drill Hall Art School. When he returned to New Zealand he won a study grant from the Ronald Woolf Memorial Trust, which he used to study graphic and photographic design. He loves theatrical subjects and life’s classic moments - life’s theatre is his true passion. Recently he has started exhibiting his work.
Roberta Queiroga is a contemporary visual artist from Brazil. With a background in architecture, she is interested in the relationship between the artwork, the viewer and the space. Before moving to New Zealand, she lived in Portugal and Japan; both countries are a prominent part of her identity and inform and influence her work. She incorporates and mixes elements of various techniques in her practice, working in symbiosis with the canvas in a way that allows emotion to flow spontaneously, with minimum interference when creating.
Kelly Rowe is an Auckland-based artist and interior designer. With a degree in architecture and 20 years’ experience working in the architecture and design worlds, her paintings explore both natural and man-made landscapes. She paints in oils and acrylic. Her abstract landscapes are tranquil, calming and contemplative, whilst her architectural landscapes push graphic boundaries, speaking of vernacular texture, form and colour, an expression of architectural drawing and constructive memory.
Originally from Hawke's Bay, Mat Scott has been creating for most of his life. He has been a painter, photographer, wood carver, metal bender and many other occupations which channel his inventiveness. He enjoys the variety of life and is sure that there are more creative iterations ahead for him. He loves surfing, family, friends and the environments in which he lives and works.
Liz Sharek graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Master of Art and Design in 2008 and has lived in Matakana for the last eight years. Following her move north, she changed her focus from cast glass to ceramics. Liz’s forms are hand-built vessels which explore texture and surface by working directly with the materiality of the clay and glaze. She is particularly interested in the interface between a controlled outcome and allowing the materials their own voice. Liz has exhibited widely in New Zealand and overseas and her work is represented in a number of public and private collections.
SiLKA (Simple Living Kiwi Artist) is an oil painter who produces landscape works inspired by Turner and the tonalist movement, as well as expressionist and impressionist-inspired figurative work. Also a musician and therapist, he lives and works in a rural home overlooking the Kaipara Harbour. SiLKA has exhibited in his own right, and his work has been sold to private and corporate buyers in New Zealand and internationally.
Annie Smits Sandano has exhibited extensively throughout New Zealand and abroad for over 16 years as a painter, print maker and now also as a ceramicist. Her work has recently become part of the private collection of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. She has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Portage Ceramic Awards, the Waiheke Small Sculpture Award 2020, the Molly Morpeth Canaday Award 2021, the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award 2022 and the Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Award 2022.
Anna Stichbury’s works are often bold and feature intense hues. Through the use of colour and texture she strives to create rich, vibrant paintings that have an immediate impact for the viewer. She is interested in our emotional response to a work. Anna has been painting and exhibiting for around 20 years and has had many group and solo exhibitions throughout New Zealand and Australia. She paints from her Wellington studio and supplies galleries nationally. Her paintings have been published in a range of New Zealand art calendars, diaries, articles and the book ‘New Zealand’s Favourite Artists’.
Anna Tang’s artwork embodies a sense of beauty and peace, exploring arrangements of urban nature and wild flora. Her everyday surroundings at her Auckland home studio inspire much of her work. Anna’s paint carvings are rich and intricate, featuring lines carefully carved into a thick base of layered acrylic paint. She uses her background in graphic design to create carefully considered and balanced pieces of art, with attention to detail and honed carving. She enjoys the simplicity of working in duotone and exploring what can be achieved with positive and negative space. Her art has a beautiful handmade aesthetic, the surface texture drawing viewers in to explore it up close and from a distance. Anna’s design philosophy is to create tranquil art pieces that can be cherished for years to come.
Irina Velman is a mixed media artist. She has travelled extensively and lived in several different countries. Irina has settled in the Waitakeres, but has a strong sense that her journey is continuing. There is always another distant shore, another chapter, another unknown layer of reality to be discovered. Her art embraces travel and transformation, expressed through seascapes and land patterns. Mixing acrylic paint with different polymers, pigments and resin, Irina creates unique textures and authentically down to earth work.
Michelle Viskovich’s art has been 24 years in its development. Originally from Waitākere in Tāmaki Makaurau, she spent a lot of her youth at Piha. She is inspired by the natural environment around her and paints landscapes to capture the vibrancy and luminosity of reflections, combining abstract techniques with realism. Her work involves subtle mark making with palette knives to manipulate the paint into a coherent composition. She practises locally with the Platina Street Art Group in Auckland.
Wellington-based printmaker Kirsty White grew up on a remote farm in the bush-clad hills of the Wairarapa which gave her a love for our landscape. Now living on the south coast, she enjoys translating her passion for landscape using texture and minimal tone through the printmaking process. Her current artwork focuses on our native bush, our treasures of the forest, nga taonga o te ngahere. The use of pattern work within her landscapes has been inspired by Pacific Island masi and tapa cloth as well as Māori whakairo. Pattern allows her to add narrative to her work, referencing our place here in the Pacific and layering details that reflect on past and present habitation.
Cara Wilde is an Auckland-based artist. Her subjects include landscapes, florals, native bird life and her unique, well-known depictions of historic towns and cottages, which can range from a majestic native tūī, to a place she has visited or a beautiful floral piece. Using a vibrant palette, Cara consciously focuses on the beauty and essence of nature. She paints what she is passionate about at that time and aims to convey feelings of calm or tranquillity on the canvas. Over the past nine years, Cara has exhibited her work at many local shows and exhibitions.
Siniva Williams is a multidisciplinary artist of Māori (Ngā Puhi and Raukawa), Tongan, Samoan, and English heritage. Siniva's blend of cultural influences allows her to create art that is both visually stunning and deeply meaningful. Her work is a reflection of her deep connection to her roots and her desire to preserve the stories and traditions of her ancestors. Through her art, she aims to create a bridge between past and present, using the whakataukī “Ka mua, ka muri” (Walking backwards into the future), conveying a sense of reverence for what has come before.
Heather Wilson draws inspiration from her memories of a happy, carefree Kiwi childhood. Her contemporary artworks also explore aspects of iconic New Zealand scenery and symbolism, connected with cherished geometric patterns from the 1970s. Heather describes her work as an explosion of bold, strong colour and texture, which is her distinctive trademark. She uses acrylic and mixed media on canvas and board with resin effects.
Evan Woodruffe is a Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-based artist. He exhibits throughout the Asia-Pacific region, with work in significant collections in Singapore, Australia, China, the USA and New Zealand. Writer Lucinda Bennett referred to his works as Wet Maps, “living, breathing ecosystems, and visualisations of a new kind of urbanism”. Evan has a Master of Fine Arts (1st Class) from Elam School of Fine Arts. An advocate for the visual arts, he runs Akepiro Street Studios and is a respected educator. He has recently exhibited at the 8th Beijing Biennale and Hastings City Art Gallery.
Clare Woods is an intuitive abstract artist based in Matakana and Torbay. She has always painted and has vivid memories of painting bright colours and patterns over her walls and windows as a child. This creative freedom led to art studies and a successful design career. Having explored mediums such as clay, printing and fibre art, she now mostly paints in acrylics on canvas, often incorporating pencil, crayon or pastel in her mark making, and is exploring collage. Often inspired by nature, Clare creates hundreds of hand-painted and cut swatches filled with intense colour which connect and overlap. Each section is unique, while blending and relating to the others like a family, each telling its own story and intended to elicit a happy, uplifting response. An underlying narrative is formed with complex layering, mark making and thick, experimental tool paint application. Similar marks and shapes reappear in her work and comprise a unique signature style, a fingerprint of pools, lines, paths and pattern. Clare's work is joyful, colourful and vibrant.
Auckland-based, Taiwanese-born Coral Noel Yang is a contemporary painter. Her current collection references water, aquatic plants and atmosphere with recurring motifs of lily pads, fireflies and jasmine blooms drawn from misty childhood memories. Blending the soak-stain method with the Asian tradition of water ink, her paintings are rich in colour, depth, layering, luminosity and watermarks, evoking a sense of time and space, wonder and belonging. She attributes her interest in art to learning calligraphy growing up and splashing pigments onto thin rice paper with her artist mother, as well as her 15 years living and working as a filmmaker and animation director, from Hollywood to China.
Jamie Adamson’s strong interest in working with wood began during his early years, when he remembers joining his grandfather in his workshop and tinkering away with tools to fix and create things. After leaving school, Jamie completed his apprenticeship in the boat building trade which gave him experience working with timber, steel and fibreglass materials.
Through boat building Jamie learned patience and the ability to craft a concept into a product that looks aesthetically pleasing. Having recently sold his business, Jamie is now embracing his long-harboured interest in sculpting with wood. Using boat building techniques, he is experimenting and developing his own style of sculpture. For Jamie, wood is a natural pleasure to work with and the process comes from an instinctual space. He enjoys the physicality of the forms he creates, emulating natural shapes, flowing lines, and working with the organic nature of the material.