I have always been fascinated by the first encounters explorers had with imagined worlds, the desire to leave what is known for the unknown, and how exploration has created map making as a way of explaining journeys to previously unknown lands. I explore the unknown through painting outside year-round to connect to what I see and how that is able to be translated visually.

Maps can exist in the stars and on paper and like paintings can offer insights into what is known about places encountered as a remnant of what was seen after the moment has passed.

I am interested in the fleeting nature of moments captured within my experience; within the ephemeral there is a place of contemplation before the moment has gone. In painting I believe that atmospheric perspective and light quality at various times of the day explores ideas of longing and separation, a type of engagement with the emotional architecture of place.

Pigment can embody the tension between proximity and distance between the grounded and the imagination and represents how we look outwards toward the future.

My work may dwell in the liminal space where the viewer feels both here and elsewhere.

I paint in Northland in situ at Matapouri Bay from daylight till darkness observing the sea and sky in all seasons and temperatures which can be physically challenging.

Situated within this environment painting I have found that the distances become closer, and that new lands of discovery open for those who look for them.