Artists

Natalie Scholtz had been travelling, painting and working as a roaming artist and art facilitator for a year when she met a lovely stranger who had seen some of her works. She was offered the opportunity to join as a residential artist in an equine veterinary clinic in Fes, Morocco. She resided there and painted amongst the stables, and got to record the ‘angular and sometimes fragmented character of the working horses, mules and donkeys of Fes’. “My 6-week residency there concluded with a solo show that I could not have been more proud or thankful for”.

Natalie is a well-travelled Australian, born in London, raised in Perth, and now resides in New Zealand. She was taught by her father, a traditional sign writer, and art was a constant, growing up, through university, travelling and living abroad. “It made sense and made me happy that the arts would be my career direction. I am motivated by the idea that I get to do something, to earn a living, which relates to what I love.” She is a self-taught artist, but has recently completed a short course at the Royal Drawing School London and has participated in ‘Artist in Residence’ in Italy, the Blue Mountains and Morocco. “I draw on inspiration found in my immediate environment. The gesture found in the everyday from botanicals, figurative, portraits, still life and self. I combine realism with a slight nod toward the angular, awkward and imperfect normalities. “The artists who have inspired me? I love Egon Schiele and Brett Whitely for their line. Peter Doig’s application of paint and colour. Frida Kahlo for her story in subject. Louise Bourgeois and her ability to capture emotion through a range of medium. My list goes on and on.

See more of Natalie's work here: Natalie Scholtz.

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Diane Gardiner was born in Auckland and achieved her school certificate in art there, as well as attending Piers Hayman Wildlife Art School and doing various workshop courses. She has always been creative and after her second son was born, she took private drawing lessons for a year.

Wanting to capture nature on canvas, generating a source of income from something she is passionate about, Diane completed a Small Business Course and became eligible for a grant from the Ministry of Social Development. This kick started her business and helped her buy stock. At this stage she was a single mum with two young boys.
In 2015, Diane and her partner, Colin, decided to move to the Far North from Kaipara to experience a more rural lifestyle. Real estate costs in the Far North were more achievable for them and they now own 200 acres. Diane reflects, “I live on a remote bush block in the Far North and am surrounded by bush, birds and stunning beaches.” In this idyllic situation, she prefers to work without music, listening to the birdsong instead. She now has two very young grandchildren, and enjoys spending time with them and their Dad. Content with what she is doing at the moment, Diane would like to have a small studio/gallery, open to the public. She says she will also start teaching small art classes in the future. Suffering from depression, Diane sometimes finds it hard to remain motivated. “I am glad that this condition has been highlighted in the last few years, so that there is more acceptance and knowledge about it. It does however, remain a personal battle.”
There are many artists that Diane admires. Two of these would be Scott Christensen, an Australian ocean painter and Amber Emm who produces beautiful realism in oils and whose classes she has attended. “I am starting to paint the sea, more as a focal point rather than just a landscape element. This is a whole new learning curve for me as I am generally known as a ‘painter of birds’”.
Email us for Diane's contact details: TNZAM Editor.

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Dawn Barry’s father had a profound effect on her interest in art from a very young age. She studied art at Auckland Girls Grammar and gained the Fine Arts Prelim. She went on to Elam Art School in 1969, but decided to spend some time travelling and gaining life experience instead of studying, which she duly did.

Dawn found that having a career as an artist was the most enjoyable way of making a living. She spent some time screenprinting T-shirts and selling then whilst living on Stewart Island for twelve years in the 70s and 80s, moving on to painting full time, selling all over New Zealand as well as Stewart Island. She now lives in Riverton, on the wild, west coast of the South Island, where she has been for the past 20 years. The beautiful birds, plants and landscapes inspire her creative soul and she is appalled by the circumstances endangering these precious species. Initially inspired by Rita Angus, Don Binney and Robin White and Wolf Kahn, she spent many years going to Summer Schools in Whanganui, Winter Schools at the Southland Polytech and attended many seminars with the likes of Julia Faithful, Nigel Brown, Paul van den Bergh and John Scott, amongst others. She feels all these artists were instrumental in her artistic development. The freedom to express herself just as she wishes and to celebrate the things she holds precious is what she loves most about being an artist. She enjoys exploring different methods and mediums and finds it boring to stick to one style for long.
Email us for Dawn's contact details: TNZAM Editor.

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Andrea Robinson cannot remember ever not being an artist. She has always drawn and painted from a very young age. “My mother said that as a toddler she would leave me in the high chair for hours with a crayon and a piece of paper. She knew she had an artist in the family when I was left alone in the kitchen at age two and I had artistically rendered the cupboards in jam.” She moved on to drawing on the wallpaper until she was given a sketch pad and felt pens.

Andrea works mainly with oil on canvas. She also enjoys creating artwork with watercolour ink on plates, and whenever she gets a chance, she will use a press. “Printmaking is very therapeutic and keeps me fresh. I love the surprise element of forms changing and colours bleeding into one another when rolled through a press onto thick Incisioni paper.” Brushes are her favourite tools. They are expensive to purchase so she looks after them well and finds it hard to part with any of them until such time as the bristles are completely worn down. “I love the feeling of a good brush that holds the paint well - and good brushes last a long time.” Andrea’s work has been displayed at the Millwood Gallery, Expressions Whirinaki Gallery, Kapiti Law Gallery, Southwards Car Museum, Shona McFarlane Atrium, Saatchi Online Gallery, Alfred’s gallery in Petone, Ocean Artists Gallery in Los Angeles, and at the Odlin and Huia Galleries. She has work in Canada, Australia, London, the United States and New Zealand.
See Andrea's website here: Andrea Robinson

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New Zealand born artist Ruth Reid, is passionate about painting, exploring, sharing and protecting wilderness areas. She started life as one of a large family on a small farm not far from Geraldine, in rural New Zealand. Her family was fairly self-reliant at a time when it was considered to be necessary and normal.
They owned a bach at a local river with an outdoor hand-operated water pump and no electricity which formed the basis of her enduring love of the simple life, self-sufficiency and for the fabulous New Zealand outdoors. She skis and tramps in remote areas of the mountains and has great pleasure seeing her family continuing to enjoy the great outdoors too.
Although she completed an Arts Certificate at the Aoraki Polytechnic in 1987, married life on a farm with three children and a job in education left little time to pursue this interest. However, through those years she was waiting for the time and place to really ‘have a go’ at exploring the joys of painting as a career and looked forward to using her late father’s historic art equipment. Unsurprisingly, some of her siblings are artists too.
While living in North Yorkshire in the UK in 2006, she joined a group of watercolourists and continued painting on her return to New Zealand. Time was ticking on when the series of major earthquakes in Christchurch beginning in 2010 changed things for Ruth - and for many others. She now had the unexpected ‘opportunity’ of extra time to pursue art as a full-time career.
RuthReidArt.com website was set up and she made a huge self-imposed commitment to attempt ‘100 Paintings in 100 Days’ with the goal of sharpening her skills and style. This resulted in publicity through radio, TV and newspaper article’s which put the pressure on her to complete the project. Fortunately, as she said “I survived.”

See more about Ruth here.

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With a Bachelor of Design, majoring in Illustration, from Massey University in Wellington, Rachel Walker says she probably chose the arts to annoy her parents in true teenage style. But the joke is on her, because she has evolved into an extremely talented artist who is paying the rent with her work.
“I started my degree thinking I wanted to be a graphic designer, then changed to textile designer. Slowly my tutors and I found that I was most skilled and excited when it came to the hand-drawn arty projects. So I ended up majoring in illustration, and after I finished university I was invited to display at a gallery, and things just kept moving in that direction.”
Rachel always keeps a notebook with her along with a camera to capture those moments of inspiration, which just pop up out of nowhere. Quite often these moments belong in the natural world, driven by that floaty, effortless beauty. She is saddened by the habitat loss and extinction of so many animal species.
Motivated by the likes of English painter, Lorna Holdcroft and Australian watercolourist, John Lovett, Rachel has always been a huge fan of Ralph Steadman’s loose, crazy style. “I like looking back over my work and seeing the style change and improve. It’s nice to feel like I’ve added some small amount of beauty to the world and hearing how happy people are with a piece of mine in their living room. I also like staying out late and not setting my alarm if I choose! Artists seem to be able to get away with things.”
Rachel is driven to improving her work, so much so that she keeps moving her goal posts. She finds her biggest obstacle is doubting herself and whether her work is good enough for exhibition. “Sometimes I think a painting is a complete failure, but if I put it away for a few weeks then drag it out again with fresh eyes, it can be fixed. Or at the very least chopped up and made into Christmas cards.”

See more about Rachel here.

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I was unhappy with my cycle of meaningless employment when an artist girl-friend dared me to come up with a painting in one week – so I painted an abstract work on an old roll up canvas window blind, outside on the concrete veranda of my run down ancient inner city villa in Christchurch.
As I was doing this, the wind blew up briefly and the still wet painting was covered with needle-like leaves from an overhanging Totara tree, these stuck to the surface and looked great to my untrained eye and it felt significant as my childhood was on a farm called Totaradale. When the week was up I blindfolded and led her into the room where the painting was hanging and her reaction was just the impetus I needed, the beginning of my belief. I sold my house and gave it my full-time attention.
I had to move towards something that at least (if clumsily) attempted to tap into some authenticity. The idea appeals to me on many levels, anything I do or say, wear or collect can be excused because there is societal acceptance of eccentricity for artists. I can attempt to stand outside, disrobe or investigate the masks I, and others wear. I have friends who are writers, who can express themselves through words, ideas and feelings. From me, it just sounds clumsy. But with paint, sculpture or whatever, I can use intensely felt but abstract, even to me, concepts and put them out there to be reacted to or ignored by the viewer. It’s an opportunity to remind others and mostly myself of what has been forgotten, which is pretty much everything.
I live at the edge of Banks Peninsula beside Lake Wairewa (Forsyth) The land our home and studio sits on - Te Mata Hapuku - was part of a Maori settlement, and out the kitchen window, across the lake is Oruaka Pa. It’s a windswept volcanic landscape that has witnessed a long pre-European settlement with all its joys and troubles. This and the accumulation of all my past experiences has seeped in and oozes out onto my canvas, in ways that I can’t, to my satisfaction, verbally express, but I can at least try to do so with paint.

Follow Michael here.

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