An island artwork with my favourite native tree - the Nīkau, I couldn’t resist adding them to this island sanctuary - I am also enamoured by these tiny caravans of old and have portrayed them in several paintings: Freedom Camper and Sitting Pretty just a bit of NZ quirkiness.
the Island series
This series began as a distillation of our own small New Zealand islands into an even smaller environment. The tableau's compress the interactions between the native wildlife and the colonial immigrants that became the new locals. Each island artwork varies in content but all hold the same concerns... That an island is a fragile ecosystem and each participant affects the overall health, resources and sustainability of that small environment
exhibit
2017 • Archipelago • (solo exhibition)
We are islands in a sea There is a saying; you can’t enter the same river twice because new water is always flowing. You could also ask, what makes an island, an island? Is it the vast expanse of ocean that surrounds it, its location next to a larger continent or the land itself protruding above the tide-line? The ocean that surrounds us has currents that emcompase the entire globe, and all of the land and islands that we can see and inhabit, are connected by the earth itself, the earth beneath our feet.
This series presents a variety of isolated islands, surveying a range of wild and domestic habitations. In each painting the oceans differ - the sky, the environment, the inhabitants, the time of day - all vary. They are a string of islands in flux; connected by change, demand and the relentless course of history and culture. The paintings can be viewed as theatrical tableau, reflective spaces, which high- light mankind’s communion with land, beast and the encompassing ocean.
Waterfront Villas 
The Village 
Trig 2 
Trig 
The Retreat 
Natives 
The Hut 
The Edge of the World 
Caravan 
Buller