I've moved to Helensville!

A few months ago we moved to Helensville, Auckland, New Zealand! A big change but a welcome one. It's been awesome to slowly get to know people in the area and get a feel for the different art groups on the go. I put artwork into the Helensville Art Centre for this month. They are showcasing up to 3 artworks per artist. I have also been working on rebranding my kiwiartist brand - redesigning business cards and updating my website www.kiwiartist.com to refresh my 'kiwiartist' brand. The aim for the brand is to use it to build up design work and fill a couple of mornings a week with work from home, from next year 2012. I love the new brand look I came up with - the 'painting kiwi' provides me with a few graphic elements I can place here and there to illustrate my personal business stationary etc. The business cards arrive next week, a matt seal with spot gloss - wahoo - thanks to Abby Press, Henderson for the great quote! Plus I have got myself listed on the main Helensville website here.

Painting is happening now on the side too. The kids sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon most days which gives me the chance to do my own thing for a bit. As my website bio explains: The Auckland West Coast beaches and Waitakere Ranges where I grew up, have always been a strong visual influence in my creative work, as well as the journey too and from Auckland city and my rural home. As a part of exploring the borders between these urban and rural environments, I enjoy bold bright colour (complementaries), but also like the contrast between soft and bright, dark and light, thick and thin paint applications, line and blended colour. I like to use paint in these ways, to support the theme of 'borders' within my work. Recently my paintings have taken on a more three dimensional feel as I manipulate both the canvas and paint. Exploring 'borders' now has me looking not just at the line between rural and urban landscapes, but also to transformations, changes of state, in between spaces, from here to there...

This is my latest work 'Preciperly' and I plan to continue in this vein with the next one which I have recently begun.