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Simon Lundqvist

Simon Lundqvist-aotearoa-artistPATIENCE, PERSERVERANCE AND TALENT

One of Simon Lundqvist’s obstacles was to overcome spending some time in a wheelchair after an accident and having to relearn how to walk. “It was a really horrible experience, but I got through it, and in retrospect the whole thing taught me a lot of patience and perseverance. Now the only thing I have left from that ordeal is a very characteristic gait, and a different outlook on life really.”

This left Simon Lundqvist experiencing difficulty with concentration and a lot of free time on his hands. He became obsessed with drawing and sketching, finding he could focus on this and it made him feel better. “I think that single-mindedness really helped me to learn and develop. Ever since childhood I have been infatuated the idea of being an artist and this has grown stronger over time. I’m just really in love with the process of painting and I can think of nothing better than spending my days making art.”

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Simon Kerr

Simon-Kerr-aotearoa-artistSIMON KERR

One-time member of the infamous Hole-in-the-Wall gang, prison escapee and activist, Simon Kerr has turned his remarkable talents to painting, creating a body of work which is both narrative and allegorical, the story of his life and redemption and a commentary on the place of human beings in the world. These works are often autobiographical in nature, exploring Kerr’s controversial history and his Devonport upbringing.

Simon Kerr gained notoriety in the 1980s when he set up the Hole in the Wall Gang (complete with t-shirts!). He also made headlines throughout the 1980s for numerous escapes from custody, including from Mt Eden and Paremoremo prisons. He stowed away on a cargo ship to Australia after escaping from Mt Eden in 1987. In 1994 he mounted a 13-day rooftop turret protest against remand conditions in Mt Eden that ended with the Armed Offenders’ Squad forcibly bringing him down.

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Sue Lund - Aotearoa Artist

Sue Lund

Sue Lund - Aotearoa Artist

FINDING THE RYTHM

Sue Lund, an elected artist of the Academy of Art in Wellington, is well-known for her striking work on the walls of the buildings at the Learning Connexion where she studied for an Advanced Diploma in Formless Art between 2003 and 2004, she already had a degree in Fine Arts from NAS in Sydney.

Sue is inspired by life: “Living and the crazy things that send you to places you either never want to go again or where the intrigue is too enormous to resist,” she says adding: “I did quite a bit of travel in my twenties and those times showed me a fairly full spectrum of what life is all about.”

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Print Feature-aotearoa-artist

Hamish Oakley-Browne

HAMISH OAKLEY-BROWNE

Hamish Oakley-Browne is a passionate artist with printmaking as his chosen medium. Having just completed a degree in fine arts at NorthTec in Whangarei, he is currently doing a six-month residency programme at Te Kowhai Print Trust situated at The Quarry Arts Centre.

Hamish says printmaking reflects a “hands-on tactile backlash to the digital world in which people have lost themselves, their intrinsic senses and richness in their lives.

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Faith McManus

FAITH McMANUS

“There is a revival of printmaking taking place in New Zealand with printmakers being increasingly recognised by the wider art community and the medium is poised to start interacting with other mediums.” These are the thoughts of Faith McManus, locally and internationally recognised as one of New Zealand’s foremost printmakers with exhibitions at dealer and public galleries in New Zealand, Australia and the USA.

Faith, an art tutor at Northtech in Whangarei, says printmaking in New Zealand does not always enjoy the recognition and appreciation it deserves. “There are not many print galleries in New Zealand and there are probably more people collecting New Zealand prints in Australia than they do here.”

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Reina Cottier

Reina Cottier - Aotearoa Artist

THE INNER ARTIST

After learning the basics of art at high school Reina Cottier spent much of her life running a series of businesses and raising a family. About seven years ago she took a course dubbed ‘Awaken the Artist Within’, which, she says, “was not so much about learning how to paint, but more about expressing yourself from within and finding inspiration”.

Needless to say the artist within Reina was re-ignited. Not that it was ever that far away. With a theatre wardrobe mistress for a mother Reina had an unconventional upbringing, surrounded by art and craft and everything that went with it.

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John Burns

John Burns - Aotearoa Artist

THE INVENTOR

John Burns, husband, father, grandfather, and artist, born in Wellington “many years ago” does not see himself as an artist but describes himself as an ‘inventor’ who makes ‘stuff’, something he has been doing very successfully for the last 30 years, selling most of the work he has produced. This is John’s story and a collection of his works over the years.

“I admire and am inspired in my art by people such as Pablo Picasso, Petrus van der Velden, Colin McCahon, Marc Chagall and many others. To me their art was different from the ‘norm’ (whatever that was). Some have taken flack for their style of art; Colin McCahon is an example of this. I think art is a long term activity where one can become bolder over time something I certainly feel applies to me.

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Claudia Recorean - Aotearoa Artist

Claudia Recorean

 

aotearoa-artist-claudia-recoreanCONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONIST

Claudia Recorean has been exhibiting her contemporary artwork in far-flung locations such as Germany and Mongolia and more recently right here in New Zealand. Here she tracks her career from the start.

The start of my artist career was marked, when I was ten years old and my grandfather sent me out to burn the rubbish. Watching the flames melt plastic into fluids and turning objects into new shapes initiated along lasting fascination with material transformation and the wish to spin straw into gold.

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John Unasa

John Unasa - Aotearoa Artist

CONSUMED BY PASSION

After many years of focusing on various career paths John Unasa recalls that it was becoming quite apparent his desire to create from a very young age was still very much alive and something had to be done about it. Now, at 35, full of life experience, qualifications and a range of skills, he says he feels the time is right for him to put his full focus into his creative passion.

“My inspirations emanate from my feelings about my physical and social environment, my mood, my imagination, my culture, pop culture and my education,” he says.

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Karen Vernon

Karen Vernon - Aotearoa Artist

UNDER A BENIGN SPIRIT

“My art doesn’t stand on words. What is on my canvas I sometimes can’t explain away with clever talk. It is not an intellectual process, my paintings are intuitive, and, I feel, painted under the tutelage of a benign spirit.” So says Karen Vernon whose journey into the art world began in 1993 while attending American Folk Art classes in Auckland.

Largely self-taught and without any formal art training Karen says she has been fortunate to have had the guidance of a number of “wonderful” art tutors to get to the level she is at today. “I was a student of Jayne Sprott, and attended her watercolour class for three years. It was at this point I developed a passion for art and began trying other mediums, but staying in the realms of more traditional realistic painting.

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