Bonco, aka Paul Nathan, is a visual artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He predominantly paints with oil on linen and sometimes makes sculpture and textiles. 
https://www.boncosmos.com/

Bonco explores the language of geometric abstraction, signs and symbols and is interested in discovering the spiritual, through an investigation of the modernist grid and its variations.  

In this episode we discuss the varied career Bonco had in the UK and America before studying at Elam School of Fine Arts and committing to a painting practice in 2017, the metaphors he uses in his work, how he feels his work doesn't really belong in Aotearoa and his overarching determination to do some good in the world.

This episode is generously supported by Creative Communities Scheme, Auckland

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Sarah Oostendorp is a contemporary emerging artist from Southland Aotearoa and currently living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Her art practice focuses on the state of mind whilst in the midst of creating labour-intensive drawings of repeated circular movements using paint.

Viewers are provoked to create their own narrative in the drawing, as figures, landscapes and textures begin to appear amongst the circles.

Sarah talks from the heart about how her unusual upbringing in a small rural town in Southland and her parents (who are outsider artists) have influenced the way she works and the work she creates, an "out of this world" experience she had in her early twenties that has shaped her as a person and an artist, her fascination for drawing circles, and how her practice is essential in helping her deal with change, her emotions and her general well being. Sarah's story is incredible and I have so much respect for her practice and her positive mindset. https://sarahoostendorpart.wixsite.com/website

This episode is generously supported by Creative Communities Scheme, Auckland.

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Olivia  Asher is an emerging multidisciplinary artist currently studying at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine Arts.

In this episode Olivia shares her experiences as a second year student at Elam School of Fine Arts. We talk about how the school is set up, the application process, the papers and electives offered in different semesters, the recording and assessment systems, the critiques, what she finds inspiring and challenging about studying at Elam and what she her goals are for the future.

Olivia's art practice currently focuses on the process of making rather than the resolved image, exploring her own vulnerability she allows her materials to dictate their outcome. Her subject matter blurs between whimsical and melancholy, often creating abstracted and figurative windows into her serene and flamboyant world. 

Season 3 is generously supported by Creative Communities Scheme, Auckland.

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Stephen Templer is an artist and illustrator previously from Wellington and now living in Kumeu, in the north west of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

His art practice includes street art, murals, graphic design, prop and concept design, illustration for children's books and community art and festival projects. His work has elements of humour and tells playful stories, connecting people to form shared worlds where they feel safe and free to express themselves.

Steve's paintings and illustrations offer a delicious escape into your own imagination with works that are like adventures with strong figurative hooks to take the imagination of the viewer on a personal voyage of discovery through old world mysticism and early nautical expeditions.

I loved meeting Steve today. We talk about his amazing art and illustration practice and how he is so compelled to tell stories. He shares his passion for tinkering, building things, historical clockwork technology, all things Havana, festivals and above all how he loves to create work that makes people smile and bring joy to the world. https://cargocollective.com/templer

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Virginia Woods-Jack is a British-born photographic artist and curator currently living and working in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is also the founder/curator of Women in Photography NZ & AU. 

Virginia's  art practice explores notions of connection to place, materiality and memory to consider relationships between the human and more-than-human worlds. By doing so, she aims to understand how memory informs the way people interact with the natural environment to highlight the importance of care in navigating the climate crisis.  https://www.virginiawoodsjack.com/ 

Virginia talks about how she built connections in the UK and Aotearoa early in her career and developed her photographic art practice after uni, the ideas and intentions behind her art practice and her current project Women in Photography NZ and AU, a curated instagram page that celebrates female and non-binary photographers and the ideas behind their work.

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Logan Moffat is a painter who graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a BFA Honours in 2018. Since then he has been painting full time from his little studio in Pukekohe, in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Capturing the portraits of people through highly detailed oil paintings at uni began his interest and exploration of painting. These early studies of people have since evolved into paintings that attempt to communicate the portrait within, provoking thought with the viewer through their interaction of the large scale and often unconventional shaped canvases to offer the viewer a moment of pause and introspection away from the distractions and cacophony of everyday. 

In 2018 he received The Adam Portraiture Award for his painting “Elam” (at that time the youngest recipient to receive this prestigious prize) and since then he has had three solo shows and a number of group shows in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland and Beijing. 

We have a wonderful conversation about his inspirational painting practice, his fascination for the portrait and how he can play with it, his interest in virtual and augmented realities, how and why he creates irregularly shaped canvases and frames for some of his work and how he found being a fine art student at Elam School of Fine Arts. 

This episode is generously supported by Creative Communities Scheme, Auckland.

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Grace Thresher is an artist, exhibition coordinator and marketing creative based in Port Waikato, New Zealand. She uses a variety of media in her work; black pen, photographic manipulation, photography, collage and paint, inspired by nature, and things around her. 

Each mark is a testament to patience, detail, accuracy and precision. Aiming to create intricacies and dimensionalities, creations the viewer can get lost in.

Grace expresses the movement and feeling of nature’s ever evolving, breathing, changing splendour through her work. Her practice is driven by a love of line, shape and colour in aquatic and terrestrial life, an exploration of the patterns and shapes of the living world.

We have a great chat about Grace's time at Elam School of Fine Art straight out of high school, how she kick started her career after uni in a number of artistic fields, the art exhibitions she has set up, curated and marketed and her very first solo show this year.

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Deborah Crowe is a visual artist working in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her practice involves building 2D and 3D environments that explore architectural, spatial and environmental characteristics. The work often queries perceptions of space, place, human's impact on the environment, systems of containing the body and language frameworks. 

Deborah's practice acknowledges its origins in woven construction and a strong interest in drawing, particularly collage. Her training as a weaver forms an overarching conceptual frame and the notion of weaving is embedded throughout the construction of imagery, fabrication of sculptural objects, installations and her approach to research. 

2022 marks Crowe’s 40th year of exhibiting. Her practice has been shown in a variety of art and design contexts across and between disciplines. Exhibitions and projects have included textiles, works for the body, fashion design, object, drawing, digital print, photography, public art, sculpture, sound and installation. 

It was such a pleasure to meet Deborah. She talks about her tertiary teaching career, her business Crowe Creative Art Services through which she delivers workshops for artists, mentoring and art consulting, her love of connecting with people and community and her stunningly varied art practice and process.
https://www.deborahcrowe.net/

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Jessica Gurnsey is an 18 year old artist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland currently based in Pōneke Wellington. 

In 2022 Jess became the youngest ever recipient of the NZ Adam Portraiture Award with her self portrait Lady Day. Her paintings have also been recognised through the National Youth Art Awards where she was the overall winner in 2021 and the winner of her category in 2022, the Kumeu Arts Awards 2022 where she won her category and just recently it has been announced that her painting Shady at Midnight has been chosen to be part of the Wellington Regional Arts Review.

Jess and I have a lovely chat in my studio about how she has suddenly become a well known painter at such a young age and how that feels, how she sees her art practice, what inspires her and how she is capturing her life through her painting.

Her story will be super inspiring for young art students and emerging artists but also for more established and older artists - as a young woman Jess has a great fresh outlook on life and her career and I have no doubt in 10 years time we will be seeing even bigger things from this very special young artist.

http://www.jessicagurnsey.com

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Scott Lawrie is an art lover, writer, entrepreneur and the owner and director of the Scott Lawrie Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

Scott Lawrie Gallery aims to connect hearts and minds when it comes to encountering and experiencing contemporary art. They proudly show a range of emerging, mid-career and Internationally-renowned artists from around the world, with a focus on New Zealand, Australia, and the wider Moana region.

In this episode Scott talks about his life, his passions, how he got to be the director and owner of an art gallery, his latest show and what he loves most about what he does. 

I ask him the tough questions that I'm sure every artist would like to know. From whether he thinks a dealer gallery is the holy grail for every artist and how to approach a gallery to dealing with rejection and NFTs.

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See images of each guests work and relevant links on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog