The Artist’s Words

“Drawing is the one skill that has further developed with practice, yet, I believe the foundations have always been in my blood.

As a child, I was always fond of creating, and as time passed and I found myself bouncing between schools, homes and continents. To accommodate my nomad lifestyle I married travel with convenience and my natural preference for pencil to paper grew.

Most of all, it brought me peace and anchored me to the present like nothing else.”

It began…

With a comfortable ability to draw, I started portraits in 2009. I first used drawing as a way to pass time at university and productively procrastinate from my actual degree.

The reactions I got from the talent I had been sitting on encouraged me to draw more.

As my curiosity for how far I could push my skills grew, I started to accumulate the most interesting and unexpected jobs.

I’ve sold prints of celebrity portraits on the streets of Auckland, had my pieces printed on clothing items, been commissioned to paint murals and worked in collaboration with Australian funeral parlours.

My most recent accomplishment is having several celebrities displaying my pieces in their homes.

This craft has helped me challenge society’s standards of beauty. The raw but delicate detail of my work shines within the wrinkles, creases and imperfections of the face; the same grooves people so desperately try to erase. Without them, there is no life, no personality, no story.

With this realisation I moved away from pencil, to eliminate the option to erase or smudge, as this felt comparable to using a filter on social media.

It’s you, but it’s not the raw you.