Artist’s Statement

I am a Landscape painter, living in Auckland NZ, and I paint the scenes around me which I find inspiring and uplifting. 

I like my paintings to show a story of the sea and land by using the time of day or the weather conditions and seasons to link to peoples experience and appreciation of visiting a place - Living in NZ you get used to the ever changing weather on both the sea and land, every day brings different weather and subsequently different lighting on the landscape, no day is the same as another.   On the water the wind direction, sea direction, and swells are constantly changing, each hour is different as it can be serene waters followed by heavy seas in the space of an hour or so.  I admire how everything is moving and changing either slowly like a glacier or quickly like the sand dunes and ocean.  The sea is comforting in a way that it will always be there for us to visit, it is a break from the land, as the land is a break from the sea.  I attempt to use colour and my brush strokes to convey that message of weather changability through my artwork.  My paintings are inspired from family trips to the beaches mostly in the wider Auckland area, as well as rural scenes typical of the North Island, and spring flowers.  I enjoy painting outside on location and taking these paintings and sketches home to inspire larger paintings.  My style is representational with a focus on capturing the light, shadows, and temperature of a place.  I use acrylic, watercolour and pastel - I like using different mediums like pastel or watercolour because it informs my style of painting when I switch to larger acrylic canvases, and the surprises and accidents bring fun and life to the artwork.