Dagmar Dyck is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, art educator and social justice advocate. She is a New Zealander of Tongan and German descent, living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Dagmar graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 1995 and was the first woman of Tongan descent to do so. She has spent the last 30 years regularly exhibiting nationally and internationally with her works being held in significant public and private collections in New Zealand. 

Her prints and paintings are inspired by her cultural heritage and explore the textile practices of Tonga.

We talk about her experiences and views of high school art education and the current state of art education in NZ.  She speaks of the communities she is connected to, how Pacifica artists have had more impact on the NZ art scene in the last 20 years and how these artists inspire her and influence her practice. She shares how her identity is a central part of her practice and we have a great discussion about her ideas around the use of cultural symbols in art and cultural appropriation.
https://www.dagmardyck.com/ 

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Janet Hafoka is a visual artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, working primarily in the medium of photography.  Her art practice focuses on transience and time passing. 

Her current work explores both the uncertainty and beauty in the short lived. The centuries old fascination with the ‘golden hour’ is referenced, known as the brief period after sunrise and before sunset when the sun casts a golden light.  

With decaying leaves and seed pods illuminated, falling and in flight, her current images seek to breathe life into nature past its prime. Through this process her work highlights value where existence is temporary. It also questions  how we depict and remember that which is no longer.

Janet shares her experience returning to her passion for the arts and completing a degree  in visual arts in her early 40s. We discuss how she discovered her love of photography, how light, skies, movement and decay influence her work and her magpie qualities and love of collecting things.

https://janethafoka.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/janethafoka 

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Neville Parker has been a full time sculptor and illustrator since 1995 and he opened his first art gallery in 1996.

Since then he has had 7 more distinctly different galleries including 1 in Auckland, 2 in Marlborough and  4 in the Nelson/Tasman region. He has represented more than 400 artists from a variety of disciplines in Aotearoa. His most recent Gallery, Church House Gallery in Motueka, opened in April this year.

Neville is interested in helping our creative community members with a desire for a sustainable career in the visual arts to not just survive but to thrive. 

He is the host of the ARTWONK podcast - an art marketing show for visual artists and crafts people that unravels the problems and pitfalls of bringing products to market.

We have a super interesting chat about how Neville went from the corporate world to becoming an artist and opening his first art gallery in Lorne Street, central Auckland initially as a way to show his work. He talks about how he has benefitted from artist communities and mentors, building relationships, as well as working collaboratively and holistically. We talk about his approach to the art market, his opinion of craft art verses fine art and his recommendations to artists for approaching a Gallery with their work.  

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Sean Hill is a Kiwi Samoan emerging visual artist from Auckland, currently based in New Plymouth. His art practice is influenced by graffiti as well as his heritage, everyday life and the natural environment and includes painting outdoors, graphic design, installation, paintings and prints on clothing.

As Gallerist Scott Lawrie says " Sean Hill is one of those rare discoveries - an emerging artist who was ‘doing his own thing’ while inventing a new visual language at the same time."

In this episode Sean shares his experience studying visual arts for 4 years at AUT and how he felt he didn't find his style until well after his uni days. We talk about the elements within his abstract paintings and what they represent, how he feels about showing his work in group shows, his connections with the amazing Bradley Lane Project, Auckland's longest running street art festival in Glen Innes, Tāmaki, and we discuss the amazing 8m long painting he applied directly to the wall of the Scott Lawrie Gallery and what he gained from that experience.
https://www.seananomaly.com/ 

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Auckland based Aimée Ralfini is an artist, design director and the founder of Art Ache.

As an artist Aimée works in the digital space, collaborating with other artists to create “campaigns” of their work. 

Art Ache believes art is the most potent form of communication and artists are the litmus paper of society. It aims to make art and culture part of the everyday conversation and aims to assist intellectual and creative development, for the betterment of the local community and national identity. 

In this episode we talk about: how she loves to poke the bear; how and why she founded Art Ache;  Aimée's techniques for drawing people into the Auckland art scene and engaging with art; her marketing, writing, presenting, promoting and curating approaches; how she handles the trolls and her art activation campaigns throughout Aotearoa.     https://www.instagram.com/aimee_ralfini
https://artache.com/

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UK born painter Neal Palmer immigrated to New Zealand in 1998 and has been painting full time ever since.

Through the exploration of the New Zealand environment he has discovered subjects that evoke strong emotional responses such as Harakeke (NZ flax). He is inspired by the natural forms, composition, spaces and shapes, as well as nostalgic references his botannical subjects provide.

Neal blends visual languages within his practice, exploring how the languages of colour, texture, pattern and abstract forms can inform and cross-reference each other. He likes to develop work that uses the illusion of a photographic ‘depth of field’ to allow images to slip in and out of pictorialism and abstraction through shifting the viewer’s conscious reactions to colour, composition, and form. 

In this episode we have a lovely conversation about how Neal found himself in NZ and how his new environment informed his art practice. He shares his gilding and painting processes and we talk about his latest artist residency and body of work created at Auckland Botanic Gardens. In the last 25 years Neal has had 27 solo or joint shows. We talk about his solo exhibition Thorny Issues, which was created in response to the Covid pandemic and lockdowns.  https://nealpalmer.co.nz/ 

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Richard Penn is a South African artist living and working in Auckland, Aotearoa. 

His work examines the intersection of scientific and artistic vision, using scale and detail as metaphoric devices to reflect on our invested positions as viewers. 

He  works across various media, including painting, drawing, sculpture and animation, exploring the relationship between visual and conceptual abstraction. 

More recently Richard has worked exclusively with clay and ceramics and in 2022 he was the recipient of The Premier NZ Portage Ceramic Award 

In this episode we discuss his upcoming exhibition in May at Public Record and a fascinating collaborative exhibition he is curating at Depot Artspace in October, his journey from SA to NZ and how he has found his community here, 

And we meet the glorious Artu Peatoo, a collaborative persona between Richard and his wife Robyn Penn, who is also an artist.
http://richardpennart.com/ 

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Helen Ollivier is a painter living in West Auckland. She graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 1997 and since then has had 6 solo exhibitions, participated in group shows and been included in several NZ art publications.

In the last few years, she has been busy running art programmes for kids and raising four children of her own, which has left her little time and headspace for her own work. Recently, she has embarked on a 100-day challenge in order to find her voice as an artist and is loving the opportunity to become a full time artist again.

Her latest works are landscapes with a strong compositional element. She is interested in rhythm and movement and the contrasts of texture, colour and light. Her work has a dream-like quality, combining a unique sense of movement and stillness.

Helen and I talk about how she came to be represented by a dealer gallery in her second year at Elam School of Fine Arts not long after leaving high school and how amazingly she is still connected to this gallery 25 years later. She speaks openly about prioritising her art practice, imposter syndrome, self doubt and the joy she has found rediscovering her art practice after a 5 year hiatus.

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Sefton Rani works out of Piha, a coastal settlement west of Auckland. He describes himself as a self taught maker who uses paint as his material of choice to create modern Pacific art.

Paint skins are collaged or simply allowed to float as a sculptural object. He encourages the apparent ageing of his work surfaces to show the lineage and journey of both the materials and of the migrant Pacific people whose artistic traditions strongly influence his work.

Sefton is of Cook Island heritage. His work enables him to explore his “Pacificness” and navigate his Pasifika identity within the broader context of New Zealand. 

In this episode we talk about how the February 2023 cyclone has affected Sefton's studio and how this event may influence his next body of work; how he sees his work as  “industrial tapa” which is influenced by the marks, patterns, motifs and forms of traditional tapa, carving, tattoo, weaving and tivaevae; the value he places on community within his art practice; his goals to be represented in galleries around the world and the lenses that have impacted his work. https://www.seftonrani.com/ 

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Rebecca Hazard is a young emerging artist currently based in Tãmaki Makaurau Auckland, working primarily with oil paints.

Rebecca's current work references raw meat to investigate our tangibility within existence and her own social concerns, offering the viewer a moment of mindfulness and philosophical reflection. 

Her oil paintings are large scale with a limited palette of vibrant colour. Although the works are fundamentally representational there is also a distinct abstract, surrealist and sometimes geometric feel to her paintings.

Rebecca talks about her decision not to attend an art school after leaving school; her expectation of and drive to becoming a practising artist from the age of 19; how reading philosophy, researching and writing influence her practice; the different ways viewers see and respond to her work; and what drives her to make the work she makes.

https://www.rebecca-hazard.com/ 

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