Drawing with charcoal is a visual art technique in which artists use charcoal, a black or dark gray, carbon-based drawing material, to create images on a surface such as paper or canvas.
Naga Tsutsumi works from a small studio in front of his suburban Palmerston North house. Just down the road the Manawatū river flows and beyond that is a stand of totara trees that he walks through regularly.
Naga has lived here for 14 years but still he says, within his work his Japan-ness murmurs. This intrigues him - this otherness and a new series of work is an exploration of identity and what it means to be ‘NZ made’.
Born in Chile, South America, Estefania Mondaca is just starting on her artistic journey and we are pleased to introduce her work to you.
Estefania is currently studying for a Bachelors degree in Architectural Studies at ARA Canterbury. She has learned that all ways of creating achieve the same point, which is to create, whatever name you call it. Inspired by life itself, the things she sees that make her think or suprise her; she finds that in Chile the focus was on people, the human figure and a totally different landscape to New Zealand. Here she is inspired by the remarkable beauty of New Zealand’s terrain. “I normally go out and take photos, for example, the Heaphy Track on the West Coast, which was the first awakening for me to this beautiful country. I started to draw and paint what I saw. I think walking is a big inspiration for me, giving me an understanding of my feelings and perception of what I see.”
I’ve come to find that art seems to always niggle it’s way back into my life, even, perhaps, when I’m trying to distance myself from it. I have no true recollection of ‘getting into art’, but like most children inherently are, I was drawn to painting and visual expression.
With my mother being a graphic designer, I was fortunate enough that she fostered my artistic energy and patiently encouraged my creativity – and amusingly, she simultaneously firmly discouraged my entering the graphic design world. I believe there is a subtle divergence that happens when artists are ‘made’, and that is when they keep drawing, painting and playing after they are no longer children.
With luscious, almost glowing colour pouring out from the canvas, Tony Clarke’s work emits a sense of vibrancy making his art feel alive. The intricate texture conveys the feeling that you could reach out and touch the feather or fur.
Tony’s father was a very accomplished hobby painter and encouraged him from an early age. “He gave me a book at age 13 of Raymond Ching’s book of British Birds and took me out drawing over the weekends. I copied paintings from that book and studied originals at the International Art Centre.”