Creative Matters Podcast

Artist Michael McHugh is New Zealand born and resides in Sydney Australia. For more than three decades, he has been exploring the vast potential of colour, composition and abstract form with an inquisitive emphasis on the natural world. 

McHugh believes constant drawing and collaging to be fundamental to his painting process. This foundation enables him to fully explore composition and vigorously push boundaries with colour, pattern and technique.

I had a lovely chat with Michael. We talk about his career in advertising and media and how he juggles life as Editor in Chief of the Mindfood magazine which he and his wife founded in 2008 with his art practice and how working in publishing influences his art practice and the way he works. We discuss his initial lack of confidence in his own art and how the passing of his beloved mother became a catalyst for developing his art practice further. He shares the story of his first opportunity to show his work and how to his surprise the show sold out within 20 minutes. This marked the beginning of his very successful career as an artist.

We hear all about his painting and drawing process and he shares some of the tools, tricks and techniques he likes to use. Michael talks about his current solo show entitled CHROMA at Martin Browne Contemporary in Sydney, which is on now and runs until the end of March 2024. 

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Faleata Ualesi is an emerging contemporary Samoan Artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. His current work is built around motifs shown through grids and pacific patterns.

I loved meeting Faleata and welcoming him to my studio (and black taro patch) at Muriwai Beach. In this episode we talk about Faleata's teaching career, how he manages his art practice around his job, and how he feels having a full time job in a way takes away the pressure to sell his artwork, allowing him to focus on experimenting and exploring and trying new techniques and media. 

Faleata is a proud South Aucklander raised in Ōtara. He has participated in the South Versed annual group shows for the last 2 years and will again in 2024. Faleata talks passionately about his work inspired by siapo, tapa cloth and Samoan tattoo and how he is currently experimenting with "breaking free out of the box" using more open curved lines, texture, colour and pattern. We discuss his use of acrylic pens, his commission work, his drawings and paintings, his light boxes and the beautiful installation tribute to his parents in the Auckland CBD. 

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Tony Ogle is known as one of New Zealand’s leading screen printers. He currently lives in Tairāwhiti, Gisborne. 

Next month in March Tony celebrates a prolific art career of more than 30 years with a retrospective solo exhibition at Parnell Gallery in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, showing more than 60 of his original paintings that have rarely been seen in their original state.

Tony digs deep into his fascinating life story and art practice. He talks about how his grandmother inspired him as a youngster and the long summer days he spent exploring the NZ coastline and the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland with his family, sparking his curiosity and imagination and consequently influencing his art practice.

We discuss how he got into screen printing, what he loves about this form of printmaking, his screen printing process and how it has allowed him to work full time as an artist for so long and make such a name for himself. 

Tony also tells a few awesome stories about the old villa he used to flat in on Takapuna Beach that later became the Lakehouse Arts Centre and his involvement in creating the Lakehouse Trust to retain the house for the future.

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Tawhai Rickard is a contemporary New Zealand Maori artist born in Gisborne, Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, of Ngati Porou decent.

He is influenced by the epic history of his country Aotearoa, New Zealand and its historical interrelationship between Māori and Pakeha to the present day.  His work reflects the social, historical and cultural landscapes of Aotearoa - Korerō, commentary, history and stories about our journey as New Zealand. 

In this episode Tawhai talks about his journey from growing up in Tairāwhiti, Gisborne, rarely seeing artwork representing his Maori culture, to becoming an artist himself. He reflects back on his first experiences drawing and how some of those ideas have been carried through to his art practice today and how he creates work to honour his Maori culture, to lift it up and to make as much noise visually as he can. Encouraging people to stop and take notice. 

We discuss his interest in pop art, music, TV and movies, British and NZ pop culture, figurative paintings from his ancestorial wharenui or house and our bicultural foundations and how these things create fuel for his art practice.

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Esther is a photographic artist living in Greytown in the Wairarapa. She has had a long successful photographic career firstly in wedding photography then in project and portrait photography. Her personal fine art photographic practice has become her main focus since 2020.

At her core Esther loves to illuminate others and give them their opportunity to shine.

She is passionate about giving people a voice and is interested in the emotion and story behind a work. It's important to her to balance this with her desire to create, experiment and explore, and to be curious - in a less conventional way. 

Esther and I talk about how and why she loves to work with people, her wedding photography days and how this career shaped her skills, techniques and influenced her future photographic practice. She shares her experimental creative process and some of the tricks, techniques and tools she uses for achieving such unique photographs. We explore some of her other collections and the meaning behind the work she does.

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


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Naomi Azoulay is a middle-eastern-born, Auckland-based award-winning portrait and mixed media collage artist. 

Naomi creates captivating, bold, intimate and vibrant mixed media collages and oil paintings. She aims to tackle social justice issues, decolonise the art space and expand the definition of beauty. She is passionate about exploring the female gaze and probing traditional gender roles. With over three decades of experience in education, Naomi has also earned a reputation as an innovative and dynamic art educator.

Naomi talks about her childhood in Israel, why she came to emigrate to Aotearoa 22 years ago and how the Israel-Hamas War of today has affected her. We chat about how she discovered the art of collage, when she came to have the confidence to call herself as an artist and why she thinks collage is such a great medium. 

We dive deep into some of her collages and paintings and why she likes to portray women in all of her work, how she manages and promotes the 2 sides to her art practice and the amazing work she does in community art education. And she has some great perspectives on being creative, learning new art skills, buying local, the merits and magic of intuitive collage, supporting her community and applying for funding - to name a few!

https://www.instagram.com/naomi_azoulay_collage/
https://www.instagram.com/naomi_azoulay_art/

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Oliver Cain is an English born artist who emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2013. His work covers a wide range of topics and materials and takes many forms from ceramics to sculpture to installation and painting. His artworks push the boundaries between conceptualism and post-pop art. 

As a proud member of the queer community, Oliver uses his work to examine, question and criticise the relationships between gender, (homo) sexuality, and society's misconceptions about these themes. His work initiates a conversation between avant-garde artistic production and human perceptions about queer sexuality. 

Ollie and I have such an inspiring, honest chat in this episode. He reflects on how he dealt with being gay growing up in the UK, how he navigated through this time and how the decision in his second year at Unitec to express his queer identity through his art gave his work 'wings' and 'heart'. He's passionate about creating work that engages and questions people, making people stop, engage, react and think.

We talk in depth about a number of his provocative and possibly confronting works, his fascinating project where he placed a banana in urinals at international galleries and how he has used toilets and other everyday objects as vessels for communicating ideas and telling stories. He comments on the challenges of being an artist in New Zealand and why he has decided to move back to Europe.

This episode is like no other and a fascinating insight into conceptual art and the life and work of Oliver Cain.  https://www.instagram.com/olivercainartist

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Joshua Davison is a contemporary artist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, with a diverse body of work in both realism portraiture and sculptural painting.

Josh is a self taught artist who has developed personal techniques which he uses throughout his impasto and sculptural paintings such as a methodical palette knife technique, layering MDF like a topographical map, making moulds and piping modelling paste.

Joshua talks about how he strives for originality and how experimenting with different media and techniques, stretching his own canvases, making his own frames and making the tools he uses contributes to finding his own unique style. We have a very candid conversation about dropping out of Elam Art School after one year and how he still went on to become a full time successful artist. We talk about pricing and the big prices his work is commanding and his so called 'failure' at his first Art in the Park event and what he learnt from that. He shares parts of his unique painting process and his connection to realism, surrealism and portraiture as well as nature. 

Josh has some great tips and perspectives as a young emerging artist. I'm sure you'll find his story very inspiring.  https://www.instagram.com/j.davison

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Tanja McMillan, a.k.a Misery, is an Australian born painter, sculptor, photographer and mural artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her creative reach is extensive, ranging from highly crafted fine art paintings and wall art to animation and fashion.

Tanja’s work, under the name Misery, graces streets and galleries in Aotearoa NZ and around the world. She has exhibited in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Melbourne, Taiwan, Berlin, Los Angeles, California, New York, Hawai'i and Paris and has collaborated with New Zealand and international designers and brands such as Blunt, Casio Baby-G, Telecom, Serato and Anna Sui of New York.

In this episode we hear about how Tanja entered the graffiti world as a teenager, how she connected with her grafitti crew TMD and how her artist name Misery came about. Tanja talks about her collaborations with brands and gives some great advice on how to get yourself out there, share ideas and show the world what you do. 

Tanja dives deep into Miseryland. She shares how the characters and worlds she creates develop and what (or who) they represent and why she often personifies plants and objects in her work. She tells a wonderful story about the making of and responses to her 2 bronze sculptures in Karangahape Road. We chat about how deadlines work for her, a week in the life of Misery and how she juggles motherhood and her creative brain.  https://www.instagram.com/miseryland/

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Sierra Roberts is an artist from Wānaka, in the South Island of New Zealand. She creates bold, statement portraits exploring perceptions of beauty and the female experience. 

Her travels through Australia, Asia, South, Central and Northern America have strongly influenced her art, inspiring her to share and celebrate the beauty she has experienced, challenging her work beyond traditional portraiture.

We talk about Sierra's experience studying fine arts in Utah and at Whitecliffe in Auckland, how she eventually decided to leave before completing her full degree and why she didn't pick up a paintbrush for the next 4 years. We discuss a pivotal moment in Mexico that triggered her creativity and passion for art, how she found her artistic groove again in 2018 and how she went on to become a full time painter in 2019. Sierra shares her approach to marketing and social media and how 75% of her 2023 sales were through Instagram.

She shares the ideas behind her Frida, Taonga and Coming Home collections, why some of her portraits have their mouths cut off or are painted from the back without seeing the face, how many of her paintings are based around herself in some way and the ways she expresses a sense of belonging and place through her paintings.
https://www.creativematters.co.nz/post/creative-matters-with-sierra-roberts

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Angela Rowe is an artist, writer, curator and mentor based in Whangārei. Her creative practice includes storytelling across performance, installation, photography, drawing, and textile works. 

Angela is interested in the future of arts in Aotearoa and how to create a more sustainable arts industry. She founded Creative Practice, a collaborative mentoring program designed to empower artists and creatives with a focus on resilience and community support.

I loved hearing stories about Angela's grandparents and how they have influenced her and her practice. Angela talks about her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Whitecliffe in 2004, why she returned 15 years later to complete her Masters, and her final installation and performance show 'I used to find dead insects in your pockets' . We talk about her Selfie series of works first created in lockdown and still ongoing, where she shifts the photographic image of herself to pencil on repurposed hand died cloth and then embeds the image and line with black thread. 

We have such a wonderful chat about the real, sometimes challenging, life of an artist: applying for funding; maintaining multiple income streams; creating work that you're passionate about but might not be able to be sold easily; selling work without being represented by a gallery; the merits of entering art awards and so much more. This is a great listen with many tips and opportunities for artists.

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Jamie Chapman is a painter based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. He was born in the United Kingdom and immigrated with his family to New Zealand when he was 2 years old, settling and growing up in Whangarei.

Jamie talks about his figurative oil paintings and how they have evolved over the years into different 'series' of portrait works. He shares how he likes to "shift it up" and challenge himself to loosen up in his painting process, partly because he doesn't like to get bored and partly because he enjoys exploring new ideas and techniques. He loves to surprise himself and the viewers of his work and the he likes the idea that people coming to his shows might be wondering what they will see from him this time.

Jamie is passionate about paint as a medium and the process of painting. He takes us through his different painting approaches and talks about the magic he feels when leaving his own paint marks in his work.

We discuss his side hustle business The Picture Hanger where he curates and hangs work for galleries and private clients, which he finds inspiring and a good way to get out of the studio and interact with other art lovers.

Jamie shows his work at Foenander Gallery in Auckland and Boyd Dunlop Gallery in Napier.   https://www.creativematters.co.nz/post/creative-matters-with-jamie-chapman

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Sofia Athineou is a full-time artist of Greek heritage, based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her practice is mainly in glass, a medium she sees as having many sensual and optical qualities. 

Surrounded by the dramatic bush of Auckland’s west coast Waitakere Ranges, it’s easy to see the inspiration behind Sofia Athineou’s incredible glass sculptures. These pieces represent vitality through light, texture and colour and appear to blend into the ever-changing landscape. Elemental forces such as wind, fire and water and the constant movement and natural patterns of these elements are captured in her sculptures. 

Sofia talks about how she adjusted to NZ life when she immigrated here at the age of 23 from Greece, how she became a full time artist after raising her children, the work she has exhibited at sculpture shows around Aotearoa NZ, the challenges she faces of living on a single artist income, pricing her work and the many hats she has to wear to keep the money coming in.

She takes us step by step through her glass casting process using open cast moulds and explains why she prefers not to polish her work.
https://www.instagram.com/sofiaathineou

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Andrew J. Steel is a New Zealand contemporary artist with a passion for story telling. Over his career he has worked across the mediums of public art, private interiors, fine artwork, letterpress, land, body, photography and digital works. 

"An artists role is to live a remarkable life and report back on it in their work." says Andrew. Andrew makes art to learn more about people & the world, then he retells these stories in his work to offer perspective and peace - both for himself and for others seeking comfort through the arts.

In this episode we talk about a traumatic event in Andrew's childhood that has had an impact on how he lives his life and his art practice. We discuss the collaborative way he worked for the first part of his career and the route he took from skateboarding, graffiti and street art to full time artist with a science degree thrown in. Andrew shares his beautiful process of working with clients to come up with stories for him to creatively respond to, his fascination for hieroglyphics and the art of story telling and how he developed such an entrepreneurial approach to his art career.
https://www.instagram.com/andrewj.steel

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Tanya Blong was our very first guest on the Creative Matters podcast and lucky for us she is back 96 episodes later to talk about her artistic journey since March 2021 and how her practice has developed and evolved. 

In this episode we start by talking about the Creative Matters podcast, how it has evolved over the last 2 and a half years since I first interviewed Tanya in episode 1 and my goals for the podcast going forward.

Tanya talks about her upcoming solo show State of Leisure at Allpress Studio in Tāmaki Makaurau which opens on November 2nd and runs until December 1st. She shares her ideas around leisure and being idle, the inspiration for her titles, how music she's listening to or what she's reading can influence the narratives that develop in her paintings. She describes her approach to colour and the 'haloing' process in her paintings and how she almost wants to "halo the halo" and we discuss ways Tanya has got through creative block and grown the business side of her art practice.

https://www.instagram.com/tanyablong/

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Julie and Michael Freeman are award winning hyperrealistic pastel artists living in Auckland NZ.

​Julie is currently creating work with the intent of realism beyond the photograph. Her subject matter is varied, from coastal and nautical to the natural fauna and flora of NZ, but if asked she would say she has an affinity with painting animals.

Michael’s subjects range from his current series of still life paintings featuring iconic New Zealand toys and objects, through to landscapes featuring old weathered sheds, barns, railway carriages, windows and doors, old locks, and farm animals (mainly cows) – all inspired by his photographic trips along New Zealand's roads with his lovely wife Julie.

It was such a pleasure to meet Julie and Michael on a gorgeous Muriwai day. We discuss the similarities and differences between their practices and creative process, the ins and outs of sharing a studio space and teaching together as a couple and the different ways they like to work. They talk about how they have built and connect to their audience on an international level and how the competitions they enter and pastel societies they belong to contribute so much to their success and artistic careers. They both demystify the pastel process and make really interesting comment about how hyper realist artists and pastel artists are viewed by some within the hierarchy of the art world.
https://www.instagram.com/michaelfreemanpastelartist
https://www.instagram.com/juliefreemanartist/ 

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Toby Raine is a contemporary artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. He has a distinctive approach to his work, moving large quantities of oil paint across the surface of a canvas with confident strokes, creating expressive, emotive, gestural paintings.

Toby spent eleven years studying at Elam School of Fine Art in Auckland, beginning in 2006 when he was 23-years-old. Over the next decade he would go on to complete a degree, then a masters, then a doctorate in Fine Arts. 

In this episode Toby talks about how he chooses his subjects, how he achieves the delicate balance between representation and abstraction and how his paintings reflect his personality. We discuss his journey to being represented by dealer galleries in Australia as well as in NZ, why he doesn't like his paintings to be described as portraits and how he communicates with the viewer through his titles.
https://www.instagram.com/tobyrainepainting

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Matthew Browne is an abstract painter living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Born in London UK, he relocated to New Zealand in 1991. 

Matthew's striking geometric paintings feature sharp lines with bold, experimental colour palettes. His process starts in exploring formal relationships in colour and form and develops greater complexity as the work progresses. He has been making and showing paintings and sculptures for more than 40 years.

After many years of teaching visual arts in both the community and tertiary sectors, Matthew founded his own art school Browne School of Art in 2013.

We have a wonderful chat and I Ioved welcoming Matthew into my studio at Muriwai. Matthew talks about how he wants to make paintings that have an untroubled aspect to them in response to the crazy cacophony of everyday life, and for people to feel a moment of solace when viewing and experiencing his work. He shares how his work and process shifted from more figurative, externally motivated paintings over the years to abstract and more internally driven expressions.

We discuss his yearning for a sense of balance, order and stillness which comes about in his current paintings through the relationships of colour. He uncovers the mysteries behind his painting titles, why he recoils when people describe his work as hard edged, why form and shape is so important to him in his work and why he loves to paint on linen and sometimes leave it exposed as the first point of reaction, the bouncing off point.

And of course we talk about how and why he founded Browne School of Art.
https://gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/artists/226-matthew-browne/

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Fleur Woods is a contemporary fibre artist based in the beautiful rural village of Upper Moutere (near Nelson, New Zealand) She is surrounded by vineyards, hop farms, orchards and country gardens - it makes sense  that her work is largely inspired by nature. 

Fleur describes her style of her work as contemporary stitched paintings. Coming to stitch as a mixed media artist she has taught herself a variety of embroidery techniques which generally don't follow traditional embroidery but beautifully serve the kind of mark making she loves to create.

From so called "Nana craft" to discovering your "creative soul". Fleur talks in this episode about her love of nature, connecting people, encouraging creativity and inspiring others. She shares how she came to be a full time artist starting with mixed media and paint, how she discovered embroidery through her love of mark making, how vintage fabrics resonated so much with her but she was never sure why until later in her practice. She talks how connected she feels with past generations of women and how she feels stitching is part of her DNA, part of her "maker genes". 

We chat about her entrepreneurial approach to her business and art practice which includes creating and selling beautiful personally assembled kits and textile treasure packs, teaching workshops around NZ and in Australia and building a hugely engaged community and audience across the world through social media. AND she tells us about her most recent exciting project and new baby, her own book The Untamed Thread, which is out next month.
https://www.fleurwoodsart.com/

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043

Abstract artist Evan Woodruffe lives in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He is a well known, much loved figure in the NZ art world.

Evan is an artist with many threads to his practice. Most of his time is spent making work for exhibitions, projects, and commissions. He's also the “product specialist” for Gordon Harris, running workshops and writing editorial for their art stores. He is one of six Global Brand Ambassadors for both Schmincke Artist Colours and da Vinci Artist Brushes in Germany. He teaches at Browne School of Art in Auckland and he is an active advocate for the visual arts, a collector, awards judge, fabric lover and writer. 

In this episode we talk about his parents' art store Studio Art Supplies in Takapuna, Auckland, which they started in 1973 and how this has influenced the work he does now. He shares how he began his adult life as a musician then later decided to study fine art, completing a BA in fine art at AUT and then switching to another art school Elam School of Fine Arts to complete his MFA, and how this changed his art practice. We discuss what makes a good abstract painting, what he wants his paintings to do to the viewer, why he loves to paint big and how he builds a painting starting with collage using fabrics from his favourite NZ menswear tailor Strangely Normal (who also make all the gorgeous shirts he wears) and sometimes finishing with found materials (such as fur from the vintage throw on his bed.)

He talks about his work as a brand ambassador and educator and he gives us a lovely insight into his and his partner Jeannie's growing art collection.

Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

Listen to this episode and see the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog

You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/


Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043