About
I studied at Ilam School of Fine Art, Canterbury University, New Zealand. While my focus was on graphic design, my love was drawing and painting. I am though, forever grateful to my teachers the late Max Hailstone and Prof. Dr Lawrence Wallen as well as visiting tutors, who instilled in me a love of balance and visual interconnection. I later completed a post-graduate in Museum Studies, where the focus was on collections management, interpretation of museum collections, our cultural history, and our role as the carers of the histories and providers of ways for these stories to be told. My curiosity for our histories and what makes us who we are had already been flourishing from childhood, but these years working alongside some great artists, curators, historians and managers of precious New Zealand collections cemented my love of a good story!
I have been runner up in the New Zealand Molly Morpeth Canaday Award (2005), a finalist in the Norsewear Award (2007) again in New Zealand, finalist in the Focus Abengoa International Painting Prize, Spain (2014), and finalist in the Parkin Drawing Prize (2019) in New Zealand.
My visual work was originally landscape-based where I explored specific landscapes that conveyed significance to me either for their historical or personal importance, serving as they always have, as a personal travel map. My work is currently moving into the figurative realm as I explore narratives for a graphic novel.
Wandering Folk and Identity: Aotearoa New Zealand… without Borders
I’m part of “the wandering folk.” What does this mean to me? Well, I am a descendant of migrants, and a migrant myself. Over the years I have often found myself in the position of the visitor, the outsider, the other. With this knowledge and quiet observation of everyday life around me, I interweave my stories and stories of the land where I presently live (Seville, Spain 2006-2017, Cambridge UK since 2017).
Being on the move, without a permanent studio has meant that the studio has become a state of mind rather than a physical space. Embracing this nomadic approach, I began a relationship with a local school where I created a pop-up art studio once a week for a period of about 8 months. I was developing drawings for an exhibition of my work in New Zealand. Children were invited to come and draw with me. They drew beside me and even on my work sometimes.
In 2020 I was about to embark on an audiovisual project working at a pop-up studio in a community hall where parents and children would gather once a week. The theme was Migration Stories. This project was curtailed with the onset of the pandemic, but that ddn’t hold me back for long!
In 2021, resulting from the pandemic, another audiovisual project took place outside our gate with the help of neighbours’ children and some local high-school music students called Stories from the Deep Blue. But what has become my central work that developed, almost while I wasn’t looking, was a story I had begun to draw and write for a neighbours daughter as a form of entertainment during the winter lockdown of 2020- 2021. I was telling the story to my children and then sharing it in a written letter for her. The story was later revisited and took the form of a webcomic that I shared with friends over winter just for fun. But the story wouldn’t go away. It kept asking to be deepened. Soon the webcomic drawings became the base of an installation for the July Cambridge Open Studios in 2021.
At that point, the graphic novel became the obvious next step. By late 2021, I had begun working on this project. The story is based on research that I have done that stretches back 20 years.
Education
Present: Life, curiosity and play.
2008: Master in Programming and Web Design, Spain
2006: Portrait painting under the tutelage of Seville Painter Meña Morillas, Spain
2000: Landscape painting under the tutelage of Seville Painter Paco Broca, Spain
1999: Cambridge CELTA, Seville, Spain
1995: Post Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies ( Equivalent of present Master) Massey University, Palmerston North New Zealand
1991 – 1994: Ilam School of Fine Art Canterbury University, Christchurch New Zealand
Projects, Collaborations, Presentations, Performance, Workshops & Exhibitions
July 2021: Cambridge Open Studios
Exhibition and workshop drop-in space, Cambridge, UK
July 2020: Cambridge Open Windows
Citywide Lockdown Exhibition, Cambridge, UK
Jan – March 2020: Migration Stories Project
In collaboration with HonC!, community project gathering and responding to migration stories of our community. Paused during the pandemic.
October 2019: Ways of Seeing: Drawing as a Pathway to Deeper Thinking
Image Conference, Brussels
August 2019: New Work on Paper
Whitespace Contemporary Art, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
April 2019: Workshop: Ways of Seeing: Drawing as a Pathway to Deeper Thinking
IATEFL Conference, Liverpool, UK
October 2018 to present: Artists in Schools Project and Artist Residency
Fawcett Primary School, Cambridge, UK
October 2018: Athens Image Conference Workshop
Athens, Greece
April 2018: A Workshop in Three Acts & Artist in Residence
Hilton and Brighton Centre, IATEFL International Conference, Brighton, United Kingdom
July 2017: Infinity Has No Centre: New Work
Whitespace Contemporary Art, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
December 2016: Cinco Años
Group Show at Wabi Sabi Gallery, Seville, Spain
November 29 2016: Paintings
Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
October 2016: The Image Conference: Talk: Artists in Schools for Language Learning
Malta
May 2016: Colegio Beaterio de la Santisima Trinidad: Artists in Schools for Language Learning Project
Seville, Spain
November 2015: Group Show
Arusha Gallery at the Edinburgh Art Fair, Edinburgh, UK
October 2015: Innovate ELT Conference: Talk: Building Community for Teacher Development
Barcelona, Spain
May 2015: Group Show
Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
April 2015: Nada en Común
Group Show at Wabi Sabi Gallery, Seville, Spain
October 2014: Learning Technology SIG: Talk: Reflections on Building an Online Course and Social Learning
Dublin, Ireland
May 2014: Postcards from the Garden of the Moorish King
Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
August 2013: Witness
Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
August 2012: Irene Ferguson and Emma Pratt: Witness
Hastings City Art Gallery www.hastingscityartgallery.co.nz New Zealand
August 2010: Look up Kathie Visual Work and Monologue
Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
August 2008: 40 Day Visual Work, Video, Audio and Spoken Works
GNS Science, Lower Hutt Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand
November 2007 -present: Christmas Group Shows
Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz Auckland, New Zealand
October, November 2007: Work from the Sanlucar Residency: Whakariuka nga Manu Inquietas son las Aves
New Works Solo Exhibition The British Institute, Seville and Tartaneros4, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain
September 2007: The Island Dweller New Works
Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz Auckland, New Zealand
August 2007: TJFA Celebrating 10 Years Group Show
Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand
May 2007: Group Show
Peter Rae Gallery Dunedin, New Zealand
August 2006: Elvis is a Go Man
Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz Auckland, New Zealand
October 2005: Ki a Te Popi
Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz. Auckland, New Zealand
August 2005: Journey to the Mountain
Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand
March 2005: Stations of the Cross
St Andrews Presbyterian Church Palmerston North, New Zealand
October 2004: The Desert Road
Martinborough Gallery for Contemporary Art Martinborough, New Zealand
2003: Objects found on Shelves and Tables
McCormack Studio Gallery Wellington, New Zealand
2003: Interior
Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand
2002: Home Land
Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand
2001: Tres Mujeres en el Ateneo Group show
Ateneo Seville, Spain
1995: Time Marking
Community Arts Centre Hastings, New Zealand