Claudia Aalderink is a self-taught artist based in Kihikihi, near Hamilton in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is also the founder and director of The Mandarin Tree art gallery in Gordonton.

Her works are created by meticulously fragmenting discarded beehives in a non-symbolic approach. Within a reduced visual vocabulary of circles, squares, rectangles, and lines, she explores the subtlety of colour, scale, and composition

Originally from Holland, Claudia says her 2005 move to New Zealand has been ‘life changing’ for her family and her art.  

We have a beautiful chat with all the windows and doors open in the studio on a gorgeous summer's day, serenaded by cicadas (and the builders next door!). We talk about how Claudia discovered her medium of choice - beehives, how she sources and stores the boxes, her systems for selecting which parts and which colours to use, 

It was fascinating hearing about Claudia's creative process. Claudia likes to work with a variety of scale and shapes, combining them in different ways. She shares her approach to design, composition, colour, space and shape, the ways she incorporates different elements found on the beehives and how she comes up with the titles and what they mean to her. We explore the charring part of her process, how she embraces imperfection and unexpected elements within the boxes, the introduction of stitching and the importance of artistic collaboration.

Claudia shares how she randomly discovered and fell in love with a building in Gordonton 10 years ago, previously a BP service station, which she went on to turn into her own art gallery The Mandarin Tree. We talk about some things she has learnt as a gallery owner and business woman, the challenges of juggling her business and her art practice and how the two parts of her life connect and compliment each other. 

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