Artists

Never having had any formal art training, Lisa Wallace has always loved to paint and draw. As a child she would write and illustrate short stories for other children to read and ran an ‘in class’ library. Previously she painted for pleasure and gifted artworks to friends and family, but two years ago she decided to follow her dream, sharing her art and painting with a wider client group. “I have a mind full of artworks that as yet I haven’t been able to create, the possibilities are endless.”

Lisa’s husband mentioned the fact, when selling their house, that people enquired about her artwork. Some of her work was sold some years ago and he suggested maybe she should see “if there was something in that”? “So painting for others began as a trial. I have been very blessed and people have received my art well, so I have been able to pursue it”, says Lisa.
Her inspiration comes from around her. She loves nature and is a people person. “I find myself drawn to faces and love that they say so much. I love to capture the soul of a person through their eyes. I also believe that art communicates in a way that is unique and triggers memories and can inspire for the future. I aim to encourage and connect with the deeper part of a person, speaking life and instilling peace.”
Always having loved Monet’s soft painterly Water Lilie’s, as well as the portraits and scenery painted by Van Gogh, with its broken deconstructed stokes, she adores the Dutch painters of old including the ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Johannes Vermeer. The classic poses and beauty and innocence captured through their brush-strokes really inspire her.
See more about Lisa here.

Subscribe Today

Jane Whiting spent the 70s working as a shift worker, with a lot of spare time during the day. She decided she needed a hobby and so contacted the Glenfield Community Centre and started weekly art lessons. Oil painting with Ida Eisse started her journey which then led to night school at Northcote College and Westlake Boys, while she worked day shifts.

Her earlier years were spent being creative in the garage with her Dad in the evenings where he would make wooden things and she would use his leftovers to make puppets, hammer all his nails into wood for ships and so on. She would go after school to his hat factory in Takapuna where they made school hats, and millinery was very much in fashion. Years later, Jane opened a hat shop after returning from the South Island. She trimmed all her own hats until she started having children, when the family moved to Waiheke Island.
All her work sold and colleagues and family started ordering paintings. While doing her OE in 1979, Jane studied and visited the art galleries and museums of Europe and Britain, then later travelled to the South Island on a working holiday, where she was inspired to paint in oils again.
While working as school secretary at Waiheke High School in 1990, the opportunity to attend a summer school at Waikato University with Lois McIvor became a turning point; she moved from a representational process to abstract, exploring colour and feelings. Jane also began to experiment with glazing and texture.
Contact Jane via her facebook page here.

Subscribe Today

Aside from some evening classes in Western Australia in the 1990s, Glenys Forbes’ achievements in pastel have been fuelled by hard work and a passionate enthusiasm for the medium. Glenys tells us about her artistic journey . . .

Pastel is my favourite medium. It is vibrant, instant, tactile, versatile = PERFECT!! I have tried most mediums but as I have a strong aversion to brushes, I always use pastel – in all its forms. My favourite piece of equipment would be my hands. My fingers are my small brushes and the side of my hand the big brush.
Portraits are my preferred subject, but I also enjoy fauna, flora and still life. Anything but landscapes, really. I am so passionate about all things pastel and the pure joy of using pastel as a painting medium. I became heavily involved with PANZ after coming home from Australia. My first ‘Purely Pastel’ National Art Awards and Convention was at Upper Hutt in 2005 and I was runner-up to the major prize. Nobody was more surprised than me. Then I ended up on the National Executive with a very busy role, convened the next Annual Awards and Convention at Mapua (2006), again at Dunedin (2010), and finally Mapua again in 2016. I also produced the bimonthly PANZ newsletter for six years. Mixing with so many talented artists and bringing tutors from Australia and the USA to New Zealand, has been a wonderful experience. See more about Glenys here.

Subscribe Today

He has always loved to draw, paint, create and invent and a career as an artist is something that evolved rather than him making a conscious decision to be an artist. “The term ‘artist’ is just a name for doing what I love.” Trent’s love affair with beautiful New Zealand is a constant inspiration for him. “I love this beautiful country and this is my inspiration, our towns, our rivers, our mountains, our beaches and our people.” He is also inspired by the work of John Singer Sargent and really loves the style of Russian Impressionist artist, Alexi Zaitsev. “We also have some great local artists here in Hawkes Bay and seeing their beautiful work inspires me as well.”

Trent explains what being an artist means to him: “I love the freedom to paint whatever I want, whenever I want. As a tattoo artist you are always trying to come up with pieces to keep your clients happy, and that’s exactly how it should be because you are working for them and they will be carrying your artwork around their whole life, so it’s all about doing what the client wants. As a painter I can paint what I like and if I am lucky enough that someone else likes it enough to put on their wall, then that’s great.”
He has always loved to draw, paint, create and invent and a career as an artist is something that evolved rather than him making a conscious decision to be an artist. “The term ‘artist’ is just a name for doing what I love.” Trent’s love affair with beautiful New Zealand is a constant inspiration for him. “I love this beautiful country and this is my inspiration, our towns, our rivers, our mountains, our beaches and our people.” He is also inspired by the work of John Singer Sargent and really loves the style of Russian Impressionist artist, Alexi Zaitsev. “We also have some great local artists here in Hawkes Bay and seeing their beautiful work inspires me as well.” Trent explains what being an artist means to him: “I love the freedom to paint whatever I want, whenever I want. As a tattoo artist you are always trying to come up with pieces to keep your clients happy, and that’s exactly how it should be because you are working for them and they will be carrying your artwork around their whole life, so it’s all about doing what the client wants. As a painter I can paint what I like and if I am lucky enough that someone else likes it enough to put on their wall, then that’s great.”

Visit Trent's website here.

Subscribe Today

“I am predominantly self taught, however I spent four years with a master artist Tim Quirke doing night classes and life drawing. This was structured and gave me insight and taught me the vagaries of the multitude of art mediums and styles. Tim has now returned to South Africa and in the last two years I have really moved forward in my artwork. I have developed my own style and I am enjoying experimenting in several mediums.

“A big motivating factor for me to think about pursuing a career as an artist was being able to express myself and have my artwork on display; to say something to another person and for them to see what I am trying to express and be understood. “Everyday life is my inspiration. I have worked in sales my whole life so have seen and been in so many people’s lives and situations. This has driven me to study the human world of portraiture and figurative art and endeavour to interpret and portray these traits and characteristics as part of my work. The style/medium is dictated by how I am moved by each occurrence. I feel you can only express what you have experienced through your life. “A colourist by nature, I really enjoy Titian and Cezanne and I love Courbet for his realism. At present I am loving some American artists such as Margaret Bowland and Burton Silverman and their expression of their experience of people they meet in their world. I am always looking at new art as it’s inspiring to see many new things and see through the eyes of other artists.

Visit Toni's website here

Subscribe Today

“I was raised in an artistic environment, my step-mother being an art teacher at a girl’s college in Kent, England. I was a shy child and became a quiet observer of the people and the interactions taking place around me. I found myself wanting to draw and paint the human form together with, what I perceived to be, the underlying emotions behind the exterior. My family travelled a lot and we lived in, and visited, a variety of countries. Due to the constant travel, I was exposed to different cultures, religions and art which broadened my interest in the unique artistic expressions of these cultures.

“One of the biggest motivating factors for me to pursue a career as an artist occurred when, as a young adult, I decided to live and work in Germany for a few years. The initial year there was a culture shock because I could not speak the language and many of the customs were new to me. Expressing myself was challenging and, even though I was living and working in a busy city, I felt isolated and found that I had to study peoples’ responses and body language on a far deeper level. This led me to question ‘identity.’ Without the full ability to verbally express myself, I began to paint my feelings of isolation. Some of these paintings were popular and were gifted to or sold to people in my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances. Discovering that my art was popular at that time was a boost to my self-esteem and encouraged me to continue and pursue a career as an artist. At that time, these experiences became my themes in the form of artistic expression and I believe that they are still relevant to my paintings today.
Visit Lorna's website here.

Subscribe Today

At age 10, John A Hawken’s journey in art began. Buying a small set of watercolours was very expensive then, and the brush that came with the set didn’t last very long, so John began shaping his own brushes from feathers shed from the mollyhawk, just like an old fashioned quill.

Always having found realism boring, after many exercises with landscapes, still life, sailing ships and aeroplanes, John’s main inspiration is a love of colour and shapes. Using his imagination and events from the outside world, painting gives him the necessary outlet to express his visions. He has found great inspiration also with the likes of Pablo Picasso, L.S. Lowry and Frances Hodgkins enjoying the cubism form, the life and meaning and the impact – respectively. During his working life, John would often experiment with painting, using printing inks and the back of printing plates. As you can imagine, this had to be a very fast process as printing ink dries very quickly. He had loads of fun with this. When it comes to mistakes and advice for new artists, John says: “Just accept it happens. Don’t panic – have confidence you can do it. Don’t sweat the small things, I have found 98% of the time it always works out.” Multi-talented, John also plays rhythm guitar and writes music and tells us he is still receiving royalties for the song ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’.
Watch John's interview on 'The Beat Goes On' here.

Subscribe Today

Born in England, Ingrid Boot studied at Westminster University, London and went on to complete a degree in Illustration at De Montfort University, Leicester. This provided a wider insight into different art disciplines and gave her first taste of life drawing; “it was brilliant and encouraged me to find my own style”.

Ingrid is is inspired by photographers rather than other painters. “I remember many years ago visiting an advertising agency in London and seeing a stunning old black and white print of a beautiful woman standing between two elephants and the image absolutely blew me away. When I was researching for a show a few years ago I recalled this photo by Richard Avedon (AMAZING fashion photographer) of ‘Dovima with Elephants’ which was taken for Harper’s Bazaar in 1955 featuring a Dior dress designed by Yves St Laurent. I love how the model’s pose created a flow and movement with the elephants and that a stunning woman, in a beautiful gown, was standing amongst these giants. It’s unnatural and yet sublime. “I love to research my subject matter as this can lead to new inspirations.” Ingrid has a large selection of Vogue fashion books – from 20th century fashion to a history of Vogue covers, which she frequently pours over to get inspired. “All sorts of things can get me very excited and inspired from pages in a magazine, billboards, my Instagram feed or just things I see in everyday life.”
Visit Ingrid's website: Ingrid Boot Artist.

Subscribe Today

As an artist I love the fact that I am never bored. I also love having the ability to be able to really look and feel for any subject that I am studying. I love that I can imbue the essence of any subject that I might be studying into my art.

I love sharing my artwork with other people and especially get a kick out of giving my artwork away. There is so much more meaning carried in a handmade gift that is specifically tailored to the receiver, I think, than something you might sell to a stranger. However, art sales are important to me too – they give me money to buy more art supplies. And when it comes to watercolour supplies, I only go for the best, so that can be very expensive indeed!
In joining Watercolour New Zealand, I want to learn from some of the excellent artists that make up that group. Lately, I have just made the move into painting rather large watercolours. It’s a slightly scary endeavour, as I have never done such large scale before, so I thought I would start with baby steps and begin with a 594 x 420 mm (A2 paper size). My ultimate aim is to get up to 1189 x 841 mm – or A0. I’m not sure where I will be able to source that size of paper but I’m sure a supplier will materialise when the time comes.
See more about Debrina here: Debrina Altered

Subscribe Today

Russia – a stellar country of vast contrasts; its topography is as diverse as the artistes that have inhabited it. From Mikhail Vruble to Alexej Von Jawlensky, Russia has produced some of the finest artists the modern world has seen; firmly establishing themselves as pioneers of artistic freedom. Tatyana Kulida is one such artist, whose move to New Zealand in 2015 ushered in a renewed interest in traditional techniques into the dominant Contemporary Art scene of Wellington. With the success of her recently established gallery Anthesis Atelier, Tatyana is truly blossoming in her new home.
For the first 16 years of her life, Tatyana Kulida spent her youth discovering and refining her interests inand subsequent talent for ‘Classical Arts’ – wiling away her days in bliss practising piano and taking yearly trips to Moscow’s finest museums. This time was spent in admiration and awe of the art around her – the beauty and vibrancy of the colours, the emotion in the paintings that were captured perfectly and profoundly. These moments ignited within her an enduring love of artistic expression which would develop into a fierce determination to learn all she could later in life. A woman born with great perception and the soul of an adventurer, Tatyana departed the Motherland at the age of 17 to explore the ever-changing world around her. The first stop on her journey was the USA, where she became an IT consultant with undergraduate and graduate degrees in Information Systems and Arts Management. Due to her schooling, Tatyana worked with businesses and non-profit art organisations, leading her to the realization that true satisfaction could only come from creating beautiful artwork.

See more about Tatyana here.

Subscribe Today