A graduate from Canterbury University School of Fine Arts and Christchurch Secondary Teachers College, I have taught art and art history at a number of schools in Whangarei and Helensville. I have been working full-time as a painter for the last ten years. As a painter and printmaker I have exhibited regularly in group and one-person shows throughout New Zealand and my work is held in private and public collections both in New Zealand and overseas. I have lived for many years in Waimauku and in that time have come to know and love the landscape here well.

I have always loved paint. The way it changes on different surfaces; the resonance of layered pigment; the slabbiness of impasto, delicacy of glazes.

Landscape is more than just something to hang my paint on. I feel a deep empathy for the land. The sense of energy and life underlying the land impels and provokes my response. I love the scribble of trees across the sky, the deep fathomless nature of dense bush and the variety of shapes within it. I like comparing the light of sky and sea to the dark secretive places in the landscape.

The Kaipara is a place that for me repeatedly invokes my love for the land. Sky and sea - vast areas of translucent glowing; dark cloud-trampled sky and the harbour shines; a mirror in the early morning; turquoise in the day, the characteristic opaque ochre gleam of the mudflats at full tide. With each change of light the Kaipara is reborn.

All images are the copyright of the artists
Copyright © 2006-7, Kaipara Branch, Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. All rights reserved