Caitlin Johnston
SELF-TAUGHT BY THE SEA By Matt Mortimer It is said that if you make a job out of what you love,…
Charles Lyle
A PROLIFIC TALENT
A PROLIFIC TALENTBorn in Rotorua, Charles Lyle is a straight-up, 'look-you-the-eye-and tell-you-like-it-is' type of man. It’s all good. This multi-award winning Kerikeri-based artists reflections on a bygone era of cars, tractors and motorbikes takes one back to a time when things were somehow more simple and direct, quieter with none of the frenetic rush of the times in which are living right now.
Of course, there is a harsher reality Charles’ work, particularly in his interpretations of aeroplanes and ships from both World Wars and which have proved immensely popular to collectors of this genre.
Darina Cincurova
THE ART OF FREEDOM
A passionate environmental artist, Darina Cincurova, hopes her art will inspire a respect and appreciation of New Zealand's diverse wildlife heritage.
Born in the Czech Republic, Darina says art has been her ‘thing’ from early childhood when she started drawing the world around her and dreamed of becoming a full time artist. Little wonder then that as a student Darina abandoned fashion design opting instead to undertake a four-year art course at a private art school in Prague as this allowed her more freedom to express herself. It is this artistic freedom that has driven and inspired Darina all her life and what she loves most about being an artist. “I cannot imagine life without it,” she says simply.
Bari Duncan
A DRIVING FORCE
After trying various work prospects, such as clerical, retail,
bank and so on, Bari Duncan finally decided to follow her
lifelong passion. “Right from pre-school,” she reflects, “my mother couldn’t keep up with my lust for colouring-in books. I have always longed to follow my heart and get focused on my painting. I just kept pushing, struggling, learning and trying until the time was right.”
Having been dealt a number of blows on her journey, Bari reflects, “My art is everything to me, it’s who I am, a driving force. I love that it has helped me through the hardest, roughest times in my life and when it seemed everything around was crumbling, it kept me focused and positive.” On the subject of education, she has not attended art school or university.
Claudia Slaney
MAGICAL FLUIDITY
Inspired and encouraged by the likes of leading New Zealand watercolourist Brian Millard and internationally acclaimed Alvaro Castagnet, award winning watercolour artist Claudia Slaney has painted all her life. In this illuminating article she reveals that art has always been and remains her main interest in life.
Brian Millard
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Brian Millard, who has been successfully exhibiting paintings since he was in his early twenties, won a scholarship to art school when he was eleven years old but left for a job in advertising at the age of sixteen. Since then he has successfully combined being both artist and writer.
He has been a graphic designer, an illustrator, a cartoonist, an advertising art director, a copywriter, a writer for television and radio, a TV producer, a journalist and the editor in chief of two magazines - one a sports magazine in the States. For a decade he and his partner Marilyn Palmer, also a respected watercolourist, ran their own gallery near Queenstown. They now live and paint in Auckland.
Sam Earp
THE CALL OF THE SEA
Despite drawing and painting landscape scenes and trees in watercolour since he was a child, a bad grade in the sixth form put Samuel Earp off pursuing a career in art and he went to university where he studied plant sciences.
Born in Guernsey, Samuel’s first job was in London. Not enjoying either London or earning much money, he took up painting again for something to do. He visited a gallery in Exeter and saw the amazing seascape by Cornish artist, Peter Cosslett.
Colin Hoare
FAMILY PORTRAIT
Colin Hoare enjoys painting portraits. Family members, friends and better-known faces are all fair game for this self-taught artist.
Colin likes to work from photographs, saying he does not really like doing pictures of people posing or pulling a big smile. “I like it when they are relaxed and acting naturally. I think that it is a privilege to paint a portrait of someone and try to be honest,” he says. “I draw using a light pencil and then paint with a brush. I prefer painting in oil because the paint takes longer to dry than acrylic paint; this means that I don’t have to keep remixing my paint in order to make the same colour.
Kathryn Millard
THE INNER ARTIST
It is an intense and intimate relationship and interaction with the world around her that feeds Kathryn Millard’s artistic soul.
“My life is about energy, rhythm and sensation, and translating that into a piece of art,” she declares. “It is about inventing the perfect technique, my own unique language for my response to nature. It is the experience of what I see happening all around me that stimulates me and gets me going, not the thing itself, that is the underlying subject of my work.”
David Foley
A LINEAR PERSPECTIVE
For much of his life David Foley worked in commercial interior design and only took up serious watercolour painting on retiring, attending various workshops in New Zealand, Italy and Australia.
“While I took an interest in drawing from a very early age I did not have any formal art training at all,” he says. He did however attend the Brixton School of Building and Architecture in the UK from 1949 - 1952 and completed a five year apprenticeship in Display and Signwriting in Hamilton.