Creek and Ponga

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Drawing and painting have been a passion of mine from a young age. Growing up on a farm in New Zealand, rural life played an important part in my early subjects, and I’d cover pages and pages of newsprint with drawings of farm animals, tractors, motorbikes, helicopters, and of my other big passion, rally cars.

Drawing remained a serious hobby until my mid-20s, when I first began to learn about the revival of classically inspired realist art. This traditional approach was being taught through a small but growing number of art academies and ateliers around the world. The calibre of the students and graduates from these institutions was, and still is, a big inspiration.

Subsequently, I have travelled to Italy on several occasions to study at the Florence Academy of Art – one of the leading schools in the world for teaching realist drawing and painting techniques.

I find portrait painting endlessly fascinating, and enjoy the challenge of attempting to reveal the subtleties that portray individuality and personality within a sitter’s physical likeness. Also, perhaps because of my rural childhood, landscapes have also become frequent subjects in an attempt to capture the mood and feeling of a scene, and the impression that it leaves upon you.

I have recently returned to my home country of New Zealand after living abroad in Florence and Edinburgh, where I spent two years studying and working on my skill, technique and knowledge of drawing and painting.”