Karin McCombe Jones
THE ESSENCE OF COLOUR With a plethora of training in all sorts of artistic areas including art and design, dance,…
Karen Gourley
IMMERSIVE DETAIL “I love when an idea in my head comes to life on paper and translating that idea into a…
Diana Peel
FLORAL FREEDOM With a Master’s Degree in design and having had full training in visual arts, Diana Peel has found herself…
Carina Sim-Smith
CARINA CREATES Born in Singapore, Carina Sim-Smith is a marine biologist by profession and a very talented artist in her free…
Adair Davis
HOW COULD I NOT? Born into a creative family with parents who belonged to a vibrant arts community, Adair Davis tells…
Vjekoslav Nemesh 2022
NEMESH
Artist Nemesh Vjekoslav, hailing originally from former Yugoslavia (now Serbia), has developed his own unique style of painting, calling it semi-abstract. His work is vibrant, colourful and representative of a prolific connection to spirituality.
Demonstrating exceptional drawing skills from early childhood, his main interest was drawing comics. “However, that changed in my early 20s when a schoolmate commissioned me to create a large oil painting. This commission progressed into a more detailed and graphic representation of my artistic style.”
Sarah Pou
COLOURFUL AFFAIR
Studying Visual Communication at Unitec in Auckland from the early age of 17, Sarah Pou went on to have her art showcased in several high street art Galleries in Auckland and then later in London. She met her husband when she was travelling in England and her artistic career was put on hold in favour of consistent income.
After the birth of her first child she painted childrens nursery artwork and one of her customers proclaimed that she was an ‘illustrator’. This resonated with her and after returning to New Zealand and having their third child, she felt an overwhelming desire to create again, which she could not ignore. She started to develop her style whilst working and looking after her young family. “Time was very limited so I carved out time in the evenings. Although it was tiring, I felt fulfilled and content when I was creating.”
Hiria Anderson
PAINTER OF LIGHT
Hiria Anderson prefers to be known simply as Hiria, a preference which reflects her shy and retiring nature. Brought up with her grandparents who were practitioners of Raranga (weaving) and Whakairo (carving) she grew up surrounded by creativity, loving drawing and making things with her hands.
“I’ve grown up around creatives so it was a natural transition for me to make art my career. As a young person I remember wanting to become an artist so I didn’t have to talk to people. I was fearful of having a job in front-of-house, reception, or serving in a shop. Anything to do with people I didn’t want to do. Well, I’ve come a long way in thinking from back then.”
UK ARTIST Amanda Bates
Trees prompted Amanda Bates’ move from palette knives and oil paint to pen and ink. “A particular group of beech trees at Avebury were responsible for this switch,” says British artist Amanda, who grew up in a house called Haere Mai, which she understands to mean ‘Welcome’ in Maori.
By Tim Saunders
“Growing on top of the henge (earthen bank), their intertwined roots have been exposed by soil erosion, caused by a combination of weathering and visitors feet. The resultant lattice is fascinatingly ornate and well beyond the scope of my knife work. Brushes didn’t seem to hold the answer either; the magic that I was reaching for didn’t seem to be present in a realistic depiction. I tried several approaches, including a diversion into a stylised use of colour that took on a life of its own for a while but it wasn’t until I reached back in time for my pen and its promise of crisply rendered detail, that I realised that colour itself might be the problem. It seems to be well known among photographers that a sharp monochrome photograph will show detail better than any colour photograph could. The reason for this has nothing to do with any inherent superiority of black and white film over colour; it holds true in digital photography. It is simply that colour distracts the eye from detail and it seems that our brains can only cope with so much visual information at a time.
Eszter Luca
ESZTER'S STATEMENTS
Loving to create statement pieces, Eszter Luca, born in Budapest, Hungary, studied a Bachelor of Arts at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in 2014. Concurrently she studied a Diploma in Interior Design which she feels has greatly influenced her career as an artist.
Many people say that “art is not a real career” yet in today’s world anyone from around the world can see your artworks with the push of a button, and if you have the motivation and deep passion for art, then there’s nothing stopping you from pursuing that dream. Eszter has always had a passion for the arts and always dreamed of taking the leap to turn her passion into a career, so in 2019 she did exactly that.