Alison Gilmour is a painter from Auckland, New Zealand. She grew up in Devonport, a coastal suburb in Auckland, which has instilled a deep love of the sea inspiring her to paint it in its many forms. She is also well known for her beautiful floral and still life paintings.

Alison captures the endless beauty of her environment with delicate brushwork – creating images which have a photo-realistic quality and hues which reflect the clarity, light and richness of the South Pacific. 

In this episode Alison tells the great story of meeting Tim Wilson, one of New Zealand’s most successful landscape artists and often referred to as the 'Master of Light'. She talks about how she came to be mentored by Tim two years later, how he got her into painting with oils and how she was eventually invited to exhibit in his acclaimed gallery in Queenstown, the Tim Wilson Gallery. Through this connection Alison increased her global profile, commanded bigger prices for her work and gained confidence in herself as a fine artist.

We discuss her 40 year career in graphic design and how it has informed her art practice and parts of her process. We have an interesting conversation about realism and the unique elements she brings to her realistic paintings and she shares parts of her process such as how she adds layers and why she sometimes likes to paint upside down. We talk about a pop up gallery she created with a friend and her plan to allow herself a few months to purely experiment and play with a view to possibly bringing some new techniques and ideas to her practice.

https://www.creativematters.co.nz/post/creative-matters-with-alison-gilmour

https://www.instagram.com/alisongilmour_artist/

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This episode is kindly supported by Turua Gallery

Dominique Marriott is a Waikato-based artist living near Raglan on the west coast. She specialises in life drawing and is well known for her minimalistic nude paintings created with sumi ink and calligraphy brushes. 

Dominique works in a bold and uninhibited way to capture the essence of the human form. Her work reflects a deep appreciation for simplicity, energy, and the intrinsic beauty of the body. Guided by the principles of Zen, Dominique approaches her artistic practice as a form of active meditation and self medication. 

This is another gorgeous, honest conversation. We had a beautiful time together in my studio at Muriwai Beach.. Dominique talks about why and how she got into life drawing after studying fine arts at Uni and what she loves about this art form.We talk about her unique process of creating multiple drawings in each sitting, why she likes to leave negative space in her drawings, how she chooses which drawings to add to her collection and which ones to discard and why life drawing is so good for her well being and her ADHD brain. 

Dom shares her life drawing commission process, why she believes every artist should use life drawing as part of their practice, her amazing life drawing performances and how she has become so comfortable with this process after initially being fearful of painting in front of others. 

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Raymond Sagapolutele is an Aotearoa NZ-born Sāmoan artist and academic living in Manurewa in Auckland. His photographic practice focuses on his lived experiences, his heritage and his cultural ties to the history of and the lands within the Pacific.

In his hands, the camera gains a voice and connects to the cherished Samoan tradition of storytelling. As Raymond says, his camera has been there when he has laughed with friends, it's been there when he has cried with family and it's been there when he has sought inspiration, clarification and resolution. 

Raymond is a natural orator and storyteller. This episode is a wonderful account of not only his life as an artist and his art practice but how he sees himself as a Samoan born in Aotearoa, the importance of aiga - family, ways he has honoured his parents and siblings through his art.

He speaks of the concept of the 'va' and how that is represented in his work and he unpacks a number of his photographic works and series in fascinating detail. 

I learnt a lot from this talanoa, this conversation with Raymond today and really appreciate his honesty, insights and perspectives. As I know you will too.

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Auckland based artist James Emery has always had a keen interest in art and art history, particularly NZ art from the 1950s and 60s and the American abstract expressionists.

Majoring in art history at Auckland Uni James worked within the art industry for many years before developing his own practice only 2 years ago. This month he celebrates his first solo show at The Grey Place in Grey Lynn, Auckland, which opens March 26th 2024.

This chat was highly motivating and interesting for me and honestly made me feel so keen to get back into my own painting practice. We talk about NZ art and artists and discover a mutual admiration for a number of abstract artists. James talks about how his natural eye for good aesthetics influenced his early career buying and selling art, decorative arts and jewellery. 

We discuss how James started his painting practice after years of observing, researching and thinking; how paint and process drives him, how he strives to create a new approach or technique in painting that could leave some kind of legacy and how he is never short of ideas, just time.

James talks about how circuit boards as objects and metaphors first inspired him to create his series "Incommunicado". We discuss his latest series for his upcoming solo show Tension and Attitude and he shares his innovative painting process, tools and techniques.

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Jae Frew is a contemporary portrait photographer previously based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland and now living in Mahurangi.

Jae's commercial career spans over 30 years and the highly respected and sought-after photographer lists prime ministers, heads of state, TV personalities, corporate CEO’s, film and television actors, and prominent sports people among his subjects. 

With time and space to pursue his own photographic projects during the 2020 / 2021 COVID lockdowns, Jae began exploring a more personal side to his practice and Manu Kōingo – Birds of Yearning was formed. A concept that had been pressing on his mind for many years – to create a series of works that speaks to and engages with the interests of his youth while raising awareness of Aotearoa's fragile and diminishing bird life.

We talk about Jae's commercial photography and some of the amazing New Zealanders he has photographed such as Jacinda Adern, Sir Edmund Hillary and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

We go deep into Manu Kōingo - Birds of Yearning, how he developed this more personal side of his photographic practice and the shows he's had since, why he likes to construct the native wood frames for each of his works.

He talks about his upcoming solo show at Parnell Gallery which opens on April 4th in Auckland and runs til April 21st 2024.

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Artist Michael McHugh is New Zealand born and resides in Sydney Australia. For more than three decades, he has been exploring the vast potential of colour, composition and abstract form with an inquisitive emphasis on the natural world. 

McHugh believes constant drawing and collaging to be fundamental to his painting process. This foundation enables him to fully explore composition and vigorously push boundaries with colour, pattern and technique.

I had a lovely chat with Michael. We talk about his career in advertising and media and how he juggles life as Editor in Chief of the Mindfood magazine which he and his wife founded in 2008 with his art practice and how working in publishing influences his art practice and the way he works. We discuss his initial lack of confidence in his own art and how the passing of his beloved mother became a catalyst for developing his art practice further. He shares the story of his first opportunity to show his work and how to his surprise the show sold out within 20 minutes. This marked the beginning of his very successful career as an artist.

We hear all about his painting and drawing process and he shares some of the tools, tricks and techniques he likes to use. Michael talks about his current solo show entitled CHROMA at Martin Browne Contemporary in Sydney, which is on now and runs until the end of March 2024. 

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Faleata Ualesi is an emerging contemporary Samoan Artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. His current work is built around motifs shown through grids and pacific patterns.

I loved meeting Faleata and welcoming him to my studio (and black taro patch) at Muriwai Beach. In this episode we talk about Faleata's teaching career, how he manages his art practice around his job, and how he feels having a full time job in a way takes away the pressure to sell his artwork, allowing him to focus on experimenting and exploring and trying new techniques and media. 

Faleata is a proud South Aucklander raised in Ōtara. He has participated in the South Versed annual group shows for the last 2 years and will again in 2024. Faleata talks passionately about his work inspired by siapo, tapa cloth and Samoan tattoo and how he is currently experimenting with "breaking free out of the box" using more open curved lines, texture, colour and pattern. We discuss his use of acrylic pens, his commission work, his drawings and paintings, his light boxes and the beautiful installation tribute to his parents in the Auckland CBD. 

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Tony Ogle is known as one of New Zealand’s leading screen printers. He currently lives in Tairāwhiti, Gisborne. 

Next month in March Tony celebrates a prolific art career of more than 30 years with a retrospective solo exhibition at Parnell Gallery in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, showing more than 60 of his original paintings that have rarely been seen in their original state.

Tony digs deep into his fascinating life story and art practice. He talks about how his grandmother inspired him as a youngster and the long summer days he spent exploring the NZ coastline and the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland with his family, sparking his curiosity and imagination and consequently influencing his art practice.

We discuss how he got into screen printing, what he loves about this form of printmaking, his screen printing process and how it has allowed him to work full time as an artist for so long and make such a name for himself. 

Tony also tells a few awesome stories about the old villa he used to flat in on Takapuna Beach that later became the Lakehouse Arts Centre and his involvement in creating the Lakehouse Trust to retain the house for the future.

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Tawhai Rickard is a contemporary New Zealand Maori artist born in Gisborne, Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, of Ngati Porou decent.

He is influenced by the epic history of his country Aotearoa, New Zealand and its historical interrelationship between Māori and Pakeha to the present day.  His work reflects the social, historical and cultural landscapes of Aotearoa - Korerō, commentary, history and stories about our journey as New Zealand. 

In this episode Tawhai talks about his journey from growing up in Tairāwhiti, Gisborne, rarely seeing artwork representing his Maori culture, to becoming an artist himself. He reflects back on his first experiences drawing and how some of those ideas have been carried through to his art practice today and how he creates work to honour his Maori culture, to lift it up and to make as much noise visually as he can. Encouraging people to stop and take notice. 

We discuss his interest in pop art, music, TV and movies, British and NZ pop culture, figurative paintings from his ancestorial wharenui or house and our bicultural foundations and how these things create fuel for his art practice.

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Esther is a photographic artist living in Greytown in the Wairarapa. She has had a long successful photographic career firstly in wedding photography then in project and portrait photography. Her personal fine art photographic practice has become her main focus since 2020.

At her core Esther loves to illuminate others and give them their opportunity to shine.

She is passionate about giving people a voice and is interested in the emotion and story behind a work. It's important to her to balance this with her desire to create, experiment and explore, and to be curious - in a less conventional way. 

Esther and I talk about how and why she loves to work with people, her wedding photography days and how this career shaped her skills, techniques and influenced her future photographic practice. She shares her experimental creative process and some of the tricks, techniques and tools she uses for achieving such unique photographs. We explore some of her other collections and the meaning behind the work she does.

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