Featured Artists

Andrea Choonoo

 


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Photo Credit Ruslana Semenyshena

MULTI-TALENTED SAILOR

Born in South Africa, multi-talented Andrea Choonoo immigrated to New Zealand in 2000. Here she graduated with a Fine Art and Graphic Design Degree from Whitecliffe College of Art and Design in Auckland. She went on to study honours in Screen and Media Studies at the Waikato University and worked as a graphic designer in Sydney, Australia for seven years. 

After working in Australia, Andrea went on to sail around the world, capturing the beauty of life through photography and making video documentaries. “I love the outdoors, especially nature and this can be seen through my artwork. Fine art has always been a strong passion and this next venture is a huge undertaking, but also an exciting adventure.” 

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Debbie Lambert

debbie-lambert-aotearoa-artistINTREPID PLEIN-AIR

Having taken art as a subject through school to upper education and later followed with an art major at training college, Debbie Lambert’s oil and watercolour painting journey has been largely self-taught with workshops over the years held by a number of notable New Zealand and overseas tutors.

With both parents loving painting and keen amateur artists, she was encouraged from a very early age to ‘make art’. “In my early 20s my mother paid for me to attend a Randall Froude oil painting workshop. I was hooked. Later I attended another with watercolours, and loved that too. Because I loved both mediums and the special properties of each type of paint, I have continued to learn from many different tutors and paint (and sell) in both mediums. I also have utilized my teaching training and tutored many artists through the years.”

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Vanessa Owens

vanessa-owens-aotearoa-artistTAKING FLIGHT

Creative from an early age, Vanessa Owens always took art as a subject in college and loved it. She approached a local art gallery in her twenties called Naxos Art Exhibits in Wellington, since closed, where she exhibited her acrylic paintings successfully for three years, part time. The gallery owner was very encouraging and she had good sales which gave her a growing confidence in her painting ability and confirmed her desire to become a full-time artist.

After finishing college, Vanessa began to feel unchallenged and robotic in administrative job roles. In contrast, her painting has made her feel challenged, and the freedom has become intoxicating. “Perseverance has taught me that progress is gained in small steps, not giant leaps forward.”

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Tammy Gabriel

tammy-gabriel-aotearoa-artistFINDING IDENTITY

By Matt Mortimer

The great Roman philosopher Cicero was credited as saying; “The face is a picture of the mind, as the eyes are its interpreter.” These words seem to resound beyond a quotation and take on a literal meaning for Albany-based portrait artist, Tammy Gabriel.

“I get inspired by photos of interesting compositions, but mostly ones that show expression on faces. My goal is to capture that expression in my painting. I love photos of interesting body compositions creating unique shapes too,” she says. “Individualism has been an area of interest to me my whole life and I am drawn towards uniqueness. I try to capture a person’s individual personality through my paintings.

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Amanda Gleason

amanda-gleason-aotearoa-artist

Painting en plein-air is a dream for many landscape artists. Unfortunately, the hurdles of self-consciousness and a lack of appropriate equipment often constrain us to the studio. Amanda Gleason has broken these chains and is now flying solo; loving her newfound artistic freedom. 

My mother was an artist and art teacher, so I was surrounded by art all my growing years. I work full time as Practice Manager at a physio clinic, but once my children had finished high school, I had the time to pursue some formal art classes and over the last five – six years I have become increasing impassioned with my painting and drawing. I have had classes in oil painting, portrait painting (based on the old masters’ techniques), drawing and landscape painting. I have also done a number of workshops through the Howick Art Group, including life drawing and still life painting.

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Rachel Barber

rachel-barber-aotearoa-artistLOCKDOWN LIMBO REVERSED

Rachel Barber is an inspiration to us all. With her enthusiasm, self-discipline and drive she took the economic and psychological impact of a COVID19 lockdown job and home loss, and turned the situation around into an opportunity for artistic growth and self-employment. And what an opportunity she created! Rachel tells us about it . . .

After I left school, I studied Digital Photography at Raffles College of Design. I have always been an artist, but I always worked as well. I was in such limbo when lockdown happened, I had lost all my work overnight due to COVID and moved out of my flat the day of lockdown. So, I was really faced with the reality of a ‘blank canvas’ in my life. I just knew I wanted to paint every day, that it was my dream job and my passion. So, the biggest flex was just saying to myself – I’m going to do this thing! I came to the realisation “I literally have nothing to lose right now.

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Pat Nielsen

pat-nielsen-aotearoa-artistSTRUCTURED REALITY

I made my first timid venture into the world of creating art about 20 years ago when a friend suggested I should enroll with Tony Clarke – a local art teacher who runs a very successful art school. It was there that I overcame my terror of the blank canvas and realised that I could at least draw

Under Tony’s watchful eye I learned a lot of valuable techniques and I gradually began to develop my own style. I subsequently decided I was not a group artist and went my own way. Although I am quite ambitious and competitive, I never saw art as a possible career. Also, I was totally immersed in another passion which was tutoring year 11 and 12 maths. I was self-taught and started by helping our oldest son’s friends to prepare for NCEA1. This quickly developed into a commitment and, eventually, it took up most of the late afternoons sharing my time with keeping control of a husband (who is also an artist using wood as a medium) and three young boys and two foster children.

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Susannah Law - Aotearoa Artist - The New Zealand Artists Magazine

Susannah Law

Susannah-law-aotearoa-artistSince childhood, Susannah Law has been receiving awards for her artwork and it was always her dream to be an artist. With much encouragement from family and friends, she finally completed a Diploma in Fine Arts from Hungry Creek Art School in Puhoi.

My mother always supported me and organised private lessons for me during my teen years with my forever favourite art tutor (late) Kathleen Bartlett. Kathleen was so passionate about art and the history of art which she studied in London, she was always inspiring to me. I can remember her even now, vividly telling a story of her travels such as to murals in Greece and Turkey and other exhibits she visited, how Van Gogh’s originals move you in a way that prints never could and that paintings in their original form always have a better impact.

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Lynley van Alphen - Aotearoa Artist - The New Zealand Artists Magazine

Lynley van Alphen

lynley-van-alphen-aotearoa-artistSOUL SOOTHING

Although largely self-trained, Lynley van Alphen has done various workshops with the likes of John Crump, Ben Ho, Wayne Edgerton as well as a week-long plein air workshop with John Wilson in Alice Springs, Australia.

Always a teenage dream, and always having wanted to make a living as an artist, Lynley fondly remembers sitting on the hillside above the Tarras (Central Otago) primary school, sketching with crayon the distant Hawkdun mountain range. She has continued to paint and sketch during her free time. The sad passing of her husband, seven years ago, enabled her to take the step to pursuing her artist’s dream more fully. "He told me when we first found out his terminal diagnosis of motor neuron disease, that he’d like me to follow my art dream when he was gone. Focusing on that helped me overcome the grief that comes from losing one’s life partner."

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Jenny Konz

jenny-konz-aotearoa-artistTHERAPEUTIC TALENT

The first time Jenny Konz picked up a pencil to draw with, was in 2009. She maintains there was never a 'plan’ to become an artist. She resorted to drawing to ease the ache in her heart from her daughter and granddaughter living so far away in America.

"I went over to America for the birth of my first grandchild as my son-in-law (GI Joe) was doing a tour in Iraq. It tore my heart in two when I had to leave this beautiful little bundle and come back home. His second tour was when she was two years old, and my daughter and granddaughter came to New Zealand for a holiday. I fell in love with this bundle of joy all over again and my heart seriously broke when they had to leave. I struggled to cope with the loss and decided to pick up a pencil and try to draw her from my favourite photo, thinking that it would be good therapy for me. I had my Aunt Margaret who lived in Christchurch who was an artist (Margaret Hudson-Ware) so I sent her my drawing for some feedback and this is what she said… "What a lovely drawing! You have caught the most important part of any drawing, which is the spirit of the work. Alex looks unsure, uncertain what is happening. Well done Jenny!!! The hair is very soft and babyish and wispy . . . good work here. Hands are a nightmare. These hands are very sweet and very young . . . good work again. (I think of them as a bunch of sausages). Lop-sided is real, too symmetrical often looks artificial - a bit of good work. Just keep going."

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