Born and raised in Ngāmotu (New Plymouth), Taranaki, New Zealand in 1978, I’ve since lived in Wellington, Malmö (Sweden) and London. I’m now living in Ngāmotu (New Plymouth) again. Home.
I started drawing and painting in about 2015. I work in a range of media, like watercolour, oil and acrylic paint, ink, glass, costume, rubber stamping and assemblages of found objects.
Themes in my work include place, time, belonging, gender, folk religion and language.
Because I work professionally as a writer and editor, art gives me a way to communicate that’s allowed to be ambiguous and open to interpretation. It lets me go down rabbit holes, exploring ideas and feelings not easily expressed in writing.
I have my work printed as merch like cards, fridge magnets, tea towels and notebooks because I think these everyday objects that are part of people’s lives can carry strong personal meanings, while art that hangs on a wall or sits on a plinth maintains a certain distance — it’s always, in some way, an ‘other.’ But both these places art can occupy are important to me.
