Koruru 2 Painting

Art and creativity have been with me since I can remember. As a child I was always drawing and sketching. My mixed heritage is similar to many in this country being of Maori (Te Arawa, Ngati Rangiwewehi) and European (Scottish) Raised in Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty and then moving around after leaving school. Hamilton, Sydney, Tauranga, Wellington, New Plymouth,Rotorua, Auckland and finally back to Hamilton. Lots of little journeys and experiences. We didn't speak Maori at home and it wasn't until my late-twenties that my art started to incorporate more maori imagery as I learnt more about the history and whakapapa. As I get older and my experiences and memories grow, so does the ability to create my art. I am a self-taught artist and have worked in a variety of media, currently acrylics. My earlier works were based on what I was doing and seeing at the time, surfing, water the land and exploring working in different media. I exhibited works in a cafe in Wellington called "land, sea and sky" in the late eighties and my feelings for the land its people and the elements have only grown with time and knowledge. My time in Rotorua (1992-94) brought me closer to my Maori heritage meeting relatives that I had not met before and feeling welcome in a place that my uncles had lived in as children, learning more of my whakapapa, at times wondering about anything after a few drinks with them at Awahou. I still have not learnt to speak Te Reo, though for seven years I worked for a company (Kaitoro Publishers) creating educational Maori cd roms and material. My art is about my journey through life, the past, present and possibly the future. It is about old and new, ancestry, nature and spiritualism and many other things. My work is varied, but so is life.