I live in the top of the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. This is a very beautiful part of the world and my artworks are responses to the land, sea and skies that surround me.

I am also strongly influenced by the experiences I have had. As a Pakeha (descended from 19^th century settlers to Aotearoa, from Europe) I grew up in a mainly British world in New Zealand.  I am however very privileged that my life journey has also taken me into the indigenous Maori world with profound glimpses into a different more holistic world view and experiences. My artworks reflect concepts of ‘turangawae’ – the place I stand, the place I belong – and ‘mauri’ – life-force of place, people, objects and experiences, partly spiritual.

Currently I divide my time between Reefton, a small town in the mountains surrounded by bush, mist and fog; Nelson, by the sea and mountains and where the sun nearly always shines; and Christchurch – a city built on swamps with distant mountains and hills.

I have drawn and painted all my life. As a child at high school however I had to decide between taking art and taking science. The science pathway led me to university, teaching, and with family, left very little time or motivation to draw and paint. In the last few years however I have rekindled my passion for art-making. As a primary teacher and Teacher-Educator I enjoyed teaching art to children and to primary teachers. Now that I have retired, my art-making is once again central to my life, along with friends and family.

I have exhibited oil paintings of landscapes at various group shows of the Nelson Suter Art Society. A colleague and I exhibited at the Suter Gallery in Nelson in 2015. In 2017 I attended a workshop in Italy and in 2019 another one in Colorado. Since then the directions of my artworks have changed. At the same time I have been on a life-changing journey of finding my birth family.

While still mainly about place, landscape, ‘turangawaewae’ and ‘mauri’, my artworks are less representational and more abstract, but still about these places I belong. I have moved away from using oils to using mixed-media with acrylic paint. My works are multi-layered, intuitive and representational, process and experience, memory and mystery.