Lucy Eglington is a painter originally from the UK who immigrated to Aotearoa  in 2003. She works from her home studio in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Working primarily in oils, Lucy’s paintings explore human states of mind: dreams, successes, losses, grief and love and the narratives we tell ourselves. She often uses animals to represent ideas and feelings and to add individual narratives to each work.

With a successful track record of sell-out shows and recognition in prestigious art awards, her works resonate with audiences around the world.

In this episode we have a gorgeous chat about the ideology behind Lucy's work, the way she uses animals in her work and what they represent to her, what she is communicating through her work, how she wants the viewer to reflect on through her work, her love of portraiture, her creative process from sketching and note taking to filing her ideas and her painting approach. 

We have an uncut video of this chat which will be available soon on our You Tube channel, which is currently under development. This will contain images of the work we are talking about and could be a fantastic resource for art teachers, artists and interested creatives, and for people who just love to watch instead of listen. 

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Alexandra Tylee is a painter living in Poukawa in the Hawkes Bay. From her early twenties until her early forties Alexandra setup and ran 2 successful businesses, Fuel espresso in Wellington and Pipi Cafe in Havelock North. She has also written 3 cookbooks and an award winning children’s fiction book called If I Was A Banana.

Alexandra started painting around 5 years ago. Selling Pipi cafe in 2023 allowed her to devote herself more to her painting practice and since then she has had two sell out exhibitions at Muse Galley in Havelock North.

In this episode we talk about her passion for cooking and how it intertwines and connects with her love of painting, feelings, memories, stories and the still life paintings she likes to paint. We discuss how she sees running a business as a creative outlet and her approach to working in hospitality, how she feels now she has sold her business and has finally got time to devote to paintings, the painting lessons she had with NZ artist Helen Kerridge and why that felt important for her to do.

Alexandra shares how she choose the objects for her still life works, what they mean to her and what they communicate, the way she sets up a composition that reflects the way she sees things, how she combines different elements and objects in her own unique way and how her paintings create stillness. We also talk about the 4 books she has written and her love of writing despite being dyslexic - I've included the video of Alexandra reading her children's book at the bottom of her blogpost.

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Anna Stichbury is a contemporary New Zealand artist from Wellington whose practice spans painting and installation, distinguished by her bold use of colour, layered textures, and dynamic mark-making. 

It was a pleasure to meet and talk to Anna, an artist I have admired for a long time, and hear all about her fascinating art practice. We discuss how Anna studied design in Wellington after high school, what she gained from this course and a significant moment that lead to her first gallery representation in her early twenties, which marked the beginning of her established full time professional artist career of more than 25 years.

Anna works around a number of themes and styles which all connect and talk to each other in different ways. We explore her floral paintings, her installation work and her most recent portraiture work and how she approaches and manages each of these series. Anna shares how her latest focus on portraiture came about and the joys and challenges of exploring a new genre within her practice.

We chat about collage, installation, materials, working between styles and media successfully, maintaining personal creative projects alongside her professional work and why this works for her. And so much more.

Anna has a solo show Listening To Flowers coming up at Parnell Gallery August 12th - 26th 2025.

Read Anna's blogpost

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Sur Collective is an artist collective founded in 2021 out of a need to create a sense of place and redefine the space Latina artists use as migrant women in Aotearoa, New Zealand. 

Sur-Collective are 5 wahine from Colombia and Chile who work with different art disciplines such as sculpture, drawing, painting, textiles, ceramics, photography and embroidery.

Today I'm speaking with one of the collective artists Cat Guevara, a ceramic artist who migrated to Aotearoa from Colombia 8 years ago.

We have a fascinating chat about how Sur Collective came about and why, how it feels to be a Latina practising artist in NZ and how the collective artists use the arts as a tool to connect, relate and communicate, always with a focus on bringing their heritage and a certain flavour to this land.

The Collective see the all of the work they do a bit like a portfolio: the work they create as individual artists that reflects on the collective, art activations, workshops, their studio space at Corbans Art Estate, installations, artist talks, community projects as well as group and solo shows.

We talk about some of the amazing Sur Collective art activations and community projects they have delivered, the ideas and stories behind the projects, what they hope to achieve from this work and how they engage and communicate with their audience. We discuss their approaches to the funding process and Cat has some great tips for people applying for funding.

Cat talks about her own ceramic art practice and how her work connects back to her heritage, her ancestors and her culture. She shares how she finds living in Aotearoa and NZ people as a Latina wahine and what she has learnt from us, which is super interesting! I am so happy to have had this conversation with an artist and collective who have immigrated to Aotearoa and hope to speak to more immigrant artists who are building community and relationships and developing their art practice here in Aotearoa. 

Sur Collective: Catherine Guevara (Ceramist); Juliana Duran (Visual Artist); Jesu Vasquez (Visual Artist); Lina Castro (Industrial Designer, Embroidery Artist); Romina Ortega (Visual Artist)

https://www.instagram.com/sur.collective/

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This episode is different to our usual format. Mandy is in the Kumeu Arts gallery at the podcast group show CONNECTION with 4 previous podcast guest artists who have work in the show. 

Contemporary Fine Artist Dita Angeles https://www.ditaangeles.com/

Abstract photographer Chris Melville http://www.chrismelville.co.nz/

Painter Yvonne Abrcrombie https://www.instagram.com/yvonneabercrombie

Contemporary painter Coral Noel Yang https://coralnoelyangart.com/

Each guest was asked what they've been up to artistically since we last spoke on the podcast, to talk about their work in the show and how it relates to the theme of connection, which work in the show would they most like to take home and why, what they think of the exhibition and what's next for them.

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Hello and welcome to season 9 of Creative Connections. I’m so excited to be back with weekly episodes and a fantastic varied line up of artists booked in from now until mid December 2025.

This episode is a bit different. I was interviewed by artist Julie Battisti for The Creative Kind Podcast a few months ago and I thought you might be interested in listening to our conversation. 

We’re talking community. Which is very topical at the moment alongside the current Connection group show at Kumeu Arts which I curated, involving 60 artists who have been guests on the podcast. This exhibition runs until July 19th 2025 and is absolutely well worth a look.

The opening last Friday was a wonderful demonstration of the community that is developing through this podcast, made up of listeners, guest artists, other artists, and some of our Aotearoa galleries. 

I mention in this episode my previous business Creative Matters, which has been sold since we recorded. Creative Connections is my new business, encompassing creative work in communities, schools and on the podcast, all with a visual arts, collaboration and community focus. 

I hope you enjoy this episode and make sure you follow The Creative Kind Podcast if you don’t already, where Julie explores listener questions and visual arts topics with artists and experts, offering diverse perspectives and insightful discussions I know you’ll enjoy.

The Creative Kind Podcast

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Janette Cervin is a contemporary painter. She lives in Warkworth, north of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, with her partner and artistic collaborator Jake Kennedy.

Jan creates beautiful large-scale paintings that offer an invitation to an immersive antipodean paradise teeming with exquisitely detailed New Zealand flora and fauna. 

A unique illusion of depth is created through the combination of traditional painting conventions and applications of thick layers of glossy resin, which is where Jake Kennedy comes in. 

This is a very special chat with Janette and I loved welcoming Jake to the conversation part way through to talk about his involvement in Janette's artistic process. 

Jan and I explore a number of personal life challenges Jan has had and how these have influenced her paintings. We discuss her early successful career in craft and decorative painting which formed the context for her commitment to explore formal art/academic education as an adult student, completing a masters degree in fine art in 2014. Jan shares how her paintings evolve, the the happy accidents that have informed her practice, her folk art inspired painting techniques and the different brushes she uses for different parts of the flowers and how she creates the incredible depth and layering in her paintings.

It was beautiful to see the formidable team that is Jake and Jan together and inspiring to see the obvious love and respect they have for each other. We talk about their shared goals, the way they work together, how they compliment each other and how they both contribute to their art practice and process. Jake goes into detail about his part of the resin process: experimenting with colour, using pigments and dyes with resin, 2 pot polyester resin application, his process of layering, sanding between layers and reusing and reconstructing old paintings.

This is the most gorgeous chat with 2 lovely NZers, I know you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

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Alice Alva is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Kirikiriroa – Hamilton, New Zealand. Her work is informed by an interest in patterns, ornamentation, architecture and craft-based processes.

In addition to her art and design work, Alice is also an art educator and a māmā to her daughter Daphne. She is an advocate for the visual arts in Aotearoa, New Zealand and is on the executive committee of ANZAAE – Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Art Educators.

This episode is our very first episode with our new podcast name CREATIVE CONNECTIONS. Same podcast different name and branding. 

I so enjoyed meeting Alice and we had the best chat. We talk about materiality, what mediums in art might be taken more seriously than others, the challenges of attitudes to embroidery or textiles in the art world, the different ways textiles can be viewed and what Alice loves about craft based art.

Alice shares how she combined painting and design after studying both visual arts and design earlier in her career, and why she moved from computer based design to teaching high school art. We explore how she came to embroidery, how her embroidery practice has developed over the years, becoming an integral part of her creative practice. Alice talks about her sketchbook / workbook practice, her interest in ornamentation and how she has brought all the disciplines, styles and themes of her practice together. We discuss how the shift in scale working on murals excites (and exhausts!) her and provides balance to her practice.

We delve into how Alice's priorities and approaches have shifted since becoming a mother and the ways she shares her making process with her daughter Daphne, why and in what ways nature inspires her, how using text and the titles of her work helps her to communicate things that are important to her. And so much more! So let's just get into it! You're going to get so much from this conversation. 

You can see Alice's beautiful work at her 2 galleries, The Mandarin Tree Gallery in Hamilton and Masterworks in Auckland. 

https://alicealva.com/

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Michelle McIver's is a contemporary artist who grew up in rural Otago and is now living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her work explores the interplay of light, colour, and form through abstract compositions. Using simple geometric shapes, she layers and juxtaposes blocks and bands of colour to create depth and structure. Each painting is an exploration of how light interacts with form, evoking a sense of balance in its abstract simplicity.' 

Michelle and I feel like kindred spirits. I loved sitting down with her and having a good chat in my little studio. We explore how she went from figurative drawing from a young age to abstract painting later in life, her short lived experience studying art at Uni after leaving school, her experience living in Japan for 7 years and how this time has influenced her and her work. We discuss how she came to seascape and landscape painting, her connection to the sea and to land,

Michelle shares her personal story of how the Christchurch earthquake disaster deeply affected her and her family, forcing a move out of the city 4 days later and a new direction.

We explore a pivotal time in Michelle's practice when she studied painting at Browne School of Art in 2024, the ways her art practice evolved over this time and how the guidance from the teachers has helped her to gain confidence in her work - helping her to settle on her own ideas, talk about her work and push her thinking and techniques to finally develop her personal style. 

Michelle talks us through her early and current artistic practice and process, her painting techniques using glazes and acrylic paint, how she approaches scale, titling work and her connection with her 2 art galleries Turua and Gallery de Novo. And so much more!

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The Resale Royalties Scheme brings New Zealand in line with global standards to ensure artists are fairly compensated when their work is resold.

It means NZ art resold here and overseas will return a payment to our artists or their successors.

Today I'm speaking with Chief Executive Sam Irvine. He explains everything artists, successors and art market professionals need to know about the Resale Royalty Scheme. I recommend you check out their website https://resaleroyalties.co.nz/ after listening to this episode which has all this information and more set out in a very readable, intuitive way with PDFs you can download, guidelines and helpful videos. 

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