Rachael Errington is a visual artist living, working and exhibiting in both New Zealand and Australia. She has been showing her paintings professionally for over 20 years, and has had 40 major solo exhibitions to date. Rachael grew up living in the middle of an English wood, where she and her brother spent most of their time making dens and treehou…

Tim Jones is a contemporary painter born in the UK and living in Matakana New Zealand. He creates bold abstract paintings through the use of strong gestural mark making. Driven by inquiry, and with evocative reference to the natural environment, colour and painterly form are intertwined and steeped in rhythm and movement. Tim talks about how he has…

Zoë Nash is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Her brightly coloured, abstract works explore a slow and mindful accumulation of repeated and highly detailed mark making. Reflecting her love of nature, Zoë’s works increasingly draw on selected plant and flower motifs as inspiration. Frequently initiated by things seen, th…

Belinda Griffiths is a conceptual figurative artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Her work lies within the disciplines of painting and printmaking and explores the expressive power of the gestural mark. When coupled with depictions of the human form, this tension between mark and form has the potential to dig deeper and communicate something …

Clinton Christian (aka Clint© or CC'd) is an award winning contemporary New Zealand artist based in Hamilton New Zealand. His graphic style, themes and mediums reflect his personality - fun, bright, shiny and often nostalgic with a love of all things 70s and 80s. Clint initially gained a big following with his animal pop portrait series ‘Animal Ins…

POPUP is a versatile platform for artists, organisations, and venues in Aotearoa to produce their own online experiences. Born out of years of online event production, POPUP allows users to effortlessly create and manage their online events. The platform's immersive virtual spaces facilitate serendipitous encounters and meaningful interactions. Fro…

Dunedin based artist Nic Dempster has been part of the city’s art scene for over twenty years. His bold colourful geometric style has developed out of contemporary landscape work and reflects his love for architecture and design. His works play with ideas of urbanisation, our infatuation with property and the great kiwi quarter acre dream. It was s…

In this episode I'm chatting to Charles Tongue, the founder and CEO of Brother Theo - a platform dedicated to career coaching and legacy planning, tailored specifically for artists. Brother Theo provides a range of perspectives to help artists plan and grow their career as well as their legacy. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take yo…

Robyn Fleet is a painter from the Hawkes Bay. Her paintings capture the essence of human experiences and our deep connections to the environment. Robyn is obsessed with the materiality of paint itself and all its possibilities. A common thread in Robyn's work is 'the human condition' suggesting avenues of emotion and thought, the human experience t…

Sally Bulling is a contemporary New Zealand painter living in Queenstown. Invoking a sense of energy, Sally Bulling's abstract works are created with physical movements, sweeping marks, dripping flicks and elaborate pours. Her love of colour, light and reflection is captured in her beautiful paintings. After a successful career in the fashion and f…

Tim Christie is a designer and artist currently based in Wellington New Zealand. His innovative, fashion-forward artistic style has been described as a modern synthesis of op art, pop art, street art and geometric expressionism. Over the last two years he has extended his collection to include light boxes, large original acrylic paintings and illum…

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 brushwor…

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 fo…

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 storytellin…

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 fi…

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 peop…

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…

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…

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…

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 Aotearo…

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 opportunit…

Naomi Azoulay is a middle-eastern-born, Auckland-based award-winning portrait and mixed media collage artist. Naomi creates captivating, bold, intimate and vibrant mixed media collages and oil paintings. She aims to tackle social justice issues, decolonise the art space and expand the definition of beauty. She is passionate about exploring the fema…

Oliver Cain is an English born artist who emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2013. His work covers a wide range of topics and materials and takes many forms from ceramics to sculpture to installation and painting. His artworks push the boundaries between conceptualism and post-pop art. As a proud member of the queer community, Oliver uses his wor…

Joshua Davison is a contemporary artist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, with a diverse body of work in both realism portraiture and sculptural painting. Josh is a self taught artist who has developed personal techniques which he uses throughout his impasto and sculptural paintings such as a methodical palette knife technique, layering MDF like a top…

Tanja McMillan, a.k.a Misery, is an Australian born painter, sculptor, photographer and mural artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her creative reach is extensive, ranging from highly crafted fine art paintings and wall art to animation and fashion. Tanja’s work, under the name Misery, graces streets and galleries in Aotearoa NZ and around th…

Sierra Roberts is an artist from Wānaka, in the South Island of New Zealand. She creates bold, statement portraits exploring perceptions of beauty and the female experience. Her travels through Australia, Asia, South, Central and Northern America have strongly influenced her art, inspiring her to share and celebrate the beauty she has experienced, …

Angela Rowe is an artist, writer, curator and mentor based in Whangārei. Her creative practice includes storytelling across performance, installation, photography, drawing, and textile works. Angela is interested in the future of arts in Aotearoa and how to create a more sustainable arts industry. She founded Creative Practice, a collaborative ment…

Jamie Chapman is a painter based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. He was born in the United Kingdom and immigrated with his family to New Zealand when he was 2 years old, settling and growing up in Whangarei. Jamie talks about his figurative oil paintings and how they have evolved over the years into different 'series' of portrait works. He shares how…

Sofia Athineou is a full-time artist of Greek heritage, based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her practice is mainly in glass, a medium she sees as having many sensual and optical qualities. Surrounded by the dramatic bush of Auckland’s west coast Waitakere Ranges, it’s easy to see the inspiration behind Sofia Athineou’s incredible glass sculptures. T…

Andrew J. Steel is a New Zealand contemporary artist with a passion for story telling. Over his career he has worked across the mediums of public art, private interiors, fine artwork, letterpress, land, body, photography and digital works. "An artists role is to live a remarkable life and report back on it in their work." says Andrew. Andrew makes …

Tanya Blong was our very first guest on the Creative Matters podcast and lucky for us she is back 96 episodes later to talk about her artistic journey since March 2021 and how her practice has developed and evolved. In this episode we start by talking about the Creative Matters podcast, how it has evolved over the last 2 and a half years since I fi…

Julie and Michael Freeman are award winning hyperrealistic pastel artists living in Auckland NZ. ​Julie is currently creating work with the intent of realism beyond the photograph. Her subject matter is varied, from coastal and nautical to the natural fauna and flora of NZ, but if asked she would say she has an affinity with painting animals. Micha…

Toby Raine is a contemporary artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. He has a distinctive approach to his work, moving large quantities of oil paint across the surface of a canvas with confident strokes, creating expressive, emotive, gestural paintings. Toby spent eleven years studying at Elam School of Fine Art in Auckland, beginning in 2006 w…

Matthew Browne is an abstract painter living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Born in London UK, he relocated to New Zealand in 1991. Matthew's striking geometric paintings feature sharp lines with bold, experimental colour palettes. His process starts in exploring formal relationships in colour and form and develops greater complexity as the work prog…

Fleur Woods is a contemporary fibre artist based in the beautiful rural village of Upper Moutere (near Nelson, New Zealand) She is surrounded by vineyards, hop farms, orchards and country gardens - it makes sense that her work is largely inspired by nature. Fleur describes her style of her work as contemporary stitched paintings. Coming to stitch a…

Abstract artist Evan Woodruffe lives in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He is a well known, much loved figure in the NZ art world. Evan is an artist with many threads to his practice. Most of his time is spent making work for exhibitions, projects, and commissions. He's also the “product specialist” for Gordon Harris, running workshops and writing editor…

Sean Beldon is a South African born, Auckland-based artist best known for his large New Zealand landscape paintings. His style is mostly painterly with a modernist feel. For more than a decade, Sean has been photographing and painting landscapes from the far north to the deep south of Aotearoa. He finds his inspiration on road trips throughout the …

Jasmine Kroeze is an an artist and textile designer living in Papamoa near Mt Maunganui. With a background in the fashion and textile design industry, Jasmine fell into the art world through painting large scale murals as a passion project and now she applies the same creative process to her original paintings and digital artworks. Jaz enjoys worki…

Elliot Love is a contemporary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. His hyper realistic paintingsdepict cars from the 80's and 90's era set within a city's still and lifeless urban environment. Elliot works in oil on canvas, often on an unusually small scale. Many of the cars he paints are reaching the end of their lifespan - several of the ca…

Linda Va’aelua is a full time visual artist and designer of Samoan Scottish heritage. She grew up in the West Auckland suburb of Te Atatu South and is based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Linda straddles the worlds of digital graphic design and fine arts. Her aim is always to bring unique perspectives to the creative landscape. Her recent work explo…

Frankie Meaden is a textile artist and painter from Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. She makes giant embroidery artwork from recycled materials. Frankie’s art is almost always botanical, with her large-scale sculptural pieces challenging the scale at which embroidery is usually seen. Frankie tells the story of the rich biodiversity of our world using col…

Mandy Rodger is a contemporary abstract artist based in Auckland, New Zealand. Mandy's first career was in law and in 2014 she began studying painting and drawing at Browne School of Art. Since 2017 her art practice has been her main focus and she hasn't looked back.. Mandy's abstract paintings are characterised by fluid moves and sweeping energy f…

Matt Payne is a landscape painter living on the North Shore, in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Much of Matt’s work is inspired by a love of New Zealand’s landscapes and coastlines, which is reflected in dramatic compositions and depicted with vivid colour and extraordinary attention to detail. He has a fascination with the relationship between colour, l…

Sam Mitchell is a visual artist based in the north west of Auckland, well known for her artworks painted in acrylic on perspex in reverse and watercolour paintings. A sassy and subversive bricolage of rescued materials, painting media and eccentric imagery are utilised by Sam to explore the potency of pictures. This is a fascinating look into an am…

Gavin Chai, born in 1997 in Malaysia, is a figurative painter and artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He specialises in the traditional technique of oil painting on wooden panels, linen and canvases and paints the world through a subtle introverted gaze. He captures everyday contemporary experiences through his careful composition and clever …

Marcus Hipa is a Niuean artist born and raised in Alofi, Niue Island, currently living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa NZ. Drawing, painting and carving are some of the mediums he utilises to explore and share insights of his people's history and culture. Marcus moved to Aotearoa New Zealand at age 17, attending the Elam School of Fine Arts at the Uni…

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…

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 …

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 rec…

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 …