Artists

Like sunlight through open windows, Angela Maritz’s paintings invite you to pause and breathe. Guided by intuition rather than form, her acrylic works explore a quiet dialogue between belonging and becoming. With roots in South Africa and the UK, and now living in New Zealand, Angela has exhibited internationally and collaborated across art and design, from New York and London to Sydney. Her recent works drift toward grounded tones, colours evoking presence and ease. These paintings are an invitation to slow down, reconnect, and feel at home in yourself, meeting you gently where words cannot.

Anna is a British born conservation artist who uses her work to draw attention to environmental issues and the efforts by conservationist and scientists to address these. She trained under Judy Curnow, a protégé of the acclaimed Tim Wilson. Her signature style combines Fairmined 24-carat gold leaf with oil paint glazing techniques inspired by the Old Masters and developed by Tim. Living on a rural lifestyle block in a predator-free zone, she is surrounded daily by the thriving native birdlife that inspires her work.

Anna’s artwork embodies a sense of beauty and peace, exploring arrangements of urban nature and wild flora. Her paint carvings are rich and intricate, with lines carefully carved into a thick base of layered acrylic paint, creating a beautiful handmade aesthetic, with the surface texture drawing viewers in to explore it from close up and at a distance. Anna’s professional background in graphic design informs her work: she prides herself on creating carefully considered and balanced pieces of art, with superb attention to detail and finely honed carving skills. She enjoys the simplicity of working in duotone and exploring the possibilities of what can be achieved with positive and negative space.

Spotlighting local architecture and community spaces, Anna invites us to reflect on all the memories and stories these places hold. She illustrates digitally with simplified lines, enhanced symmetry, and soft, complementary tones, resulting in a series of limited-edition prints. Rather unusually, she creates using Microsoft PowerPoint, a common presentation software that has not been developed with artists in mind. You wouldn’t know this at first glance, but behind the scenes her process is more akin to collage, using a simple toolkit of shapes to slowly construct the desired image.

Anya Petrukhina's art has always been her silent liaison between emotion and expression. She has grown into appreciating nature's beauty through her art, while including personal or global motifs. Anya draws inspiration from Impressionism, 1970s Sci-fi and Russian Realism. As a child, she has studied in Art School in the South-East of Moscow. Anya was personally taught by Stanislav Brusilov, a renowned oil painter. Now, she is in pursuit of higher education and establishing her art career.

BEMODERN (aka Paul Darragh) is a Mount Maunganui–based artist whose work explores colour, geometry and spatial perception. Working with bold, graphic compositions, he creates paintings, murals and sculptural works that behave like architectural surfaces interrupted by portals and spatial openings. His recent VOID series investigates how colour relationships can shift the viewer’s sense of depth and space. Alongside his studio practice he works internationally as a motion graphics designer with design studios in New York. His work has been exhibited across Aotearoa, Seoul, Melbourne and New York.

Brad Novak (aka New Blood Pop) is a leading urban artist whose work sits sharply at the nexus between fine art and street art. His practice deals with 'The Digital Dilemma': “I believe those of us who remember first-hand what it was like before ‘the internet’ have a duty to future generations. Many of my artworks continue to be a commentary, and warning, about the challenges with an ever-increasing technological age”. Novak is the first artist in NZ’s history to exhibit simultaneously with both the global pop and street art superstars such as Warhol, Haring, Brainwash and BANKSY (Toronto, 2015).

The winner of the Eden Park Landscape Award 2025, and working in diverse mediums, Mortimer expresses his connection with the Earth in series that range in style from abstraction to photorealism.

Caleb Kuita is a Māori artist specialising in whakairo (traditional Māori wood carving). Born and raised in Hawke’s Bay, with his whakapapa to Whangārā and Tikitiki on the East Coast. His practice is driven by a deep appreciation for Māori art forms and a desire to master them over time. Inspired by artists such as Steve Solomon, Todd Couper, and Mr G, Caleb values clean, refined craftsmanship with a contemporary sensibility. After serving 10 years in the Royal New Zealand Navy, he is now pursuing his long-held aspiration to study whakairo at Te Puia, NZMACI.

Cathryn Ryan: Capturing the Kiwi Narrative: Cathryn Ryan captures a positive yet quirky vision of New Zealand identity through her art. She uses vessels to contain and reflect aspects of our shared life, offering viewers an accessible, clean, and green perspective. These symbolic containers include the egg, signifying potential and fragility, and the enamel mug, often evoking happy, common memories. Ryan selects these and other objects for their relatability, shared experience, or memorial significance, inviting viewers to engage with the familiar stories woven into her vibrant pieces.

Born in South Africa and raised in New Zealand, Cayleen Bester is a digital illustrator with a background in 2D animation. She combines cinematic and traditional painting techniques to create her work, using pencils and watercolour to thumbnail her concepts before hand-painting the final composition on an iPad or drawing tablet. Her illustrations are inspired by the natural world and her curiosity for the creatures we share it with, incorporating their unique personalities and stories into her paintings. In each piece, she layers personal experiences and emotion, drawing connections between the human and animal experience in a way that feels enchanting.

Chris Melville is a New Zealand abstract photographer whose work transforms light, fabric, and texture into meditative landscapes that blur the line between the real and the imagined. Through long exposures and subtle movement, he captures the fleeting interplay of material and emotion, inviting viewers into a state of quiet reflection. Each image feels both intimate and vast – evoking places that seem familiar yet unplaceable. Melville’s work explores the poetry of perception and the beauty found in transience, offering a contemplative pause in a world that moves too fast.

Christian Nicolson is a New Zealand artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores history, nostalgia, and the natural world around him. Influenced by his coastal upbringing in the 1980s, his work is marked by expressive mark-making, vivid colour, and conceptual play. Nicolson’s large-scale sculptures and emotive paintings are rooted in freedom, humour, and personal history. A former designer, he brings visual clarity and narrative energy to each piece. Recurring themes include childhood, identity, nudity, sci-fi, and the passage of time. Christian has a sense of humour and often expresses it in his work. With a strong exhibition history and works held in public and private collections, Nicolson continues to forge a distinctive, enduring artistic voice.

As a child growing up in rural Southland Clare found solice drawing and painting, it gave her ways to express herself with words. She seeks to capture the dynamic interplay between how we see the would and how we use it. Her love of colour and form evokes emotion in us which she hopes will make us all reflect on our own relationship with our land and each other.

Clint C (Clinton Christian) is an award-winning contemporary New Zealand artist focused on creating unique modernist works that are bold, relatable, and often nostalgic. Within his work is a strong sense of identity as he relives childhood memories of 1980s–90s pop culture and, within his art, shares his own personality through themes such as music, television, games, and sweets. Prior to becoming a full-time artist, Clint worked in the construction industry, followed by many years as an architectural designer, and he uses these life experiences in his latest works to create detailed painted wall sculptures with a high-quality glass-like resin finish. Clint has been a full-time artist since 2019, creating realism, mixed media, and sculptural works, with career highlights that include an 80-piece solo exhibition at Auckland’s Flagstaff Gallery and a large commissioned artwork for Eden Park (New Zealand’s National Stadium). Clint has exhibited in many large art shows and fairs throughout New Zealand and Australia, with plans to share his work internationally.

The preservation of her childhood memories constitutes the raw material from which Briceño creates her pictorial work, which is shaped through the repetition and superposition of layers of colour that fit together, revealing forms and memories of home and nature. Constanza currently works in her home studio in Papamoa. In the intimacy of this space, the artist reconstructs and narrates passages from her memory, drawing upon moments, people, and places from the past that intertwine in an accumulation of layers and veils, where the intimacy of living spaces, lived spaces, and remembered places is interwoven in her works.

Dalene was born in South Africa and studied at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. She moved to New Zealand in 1997. Dalene’s canvases have been described as being rich, warm, and easy on the eye. They are vivid in colour, harmonious in form, and express a rarely found vitality. Passionate about experimentation with texture, colour, and different media, she is able to produce a unique and compelling finish to these styles. She portrays the people, places, and objects which link her inextricably with her surroundings. “I try to impose a visual and emotional experience in my paintings and favour emotion over precision.”

A painter working in oils, acrylics, and spray paint, Dan is a full-time father, husband, and artist supporting a wife and three daughters. He is currently dividing his time between Aotearoa and Czechia.

Based in Tauranga, New Zealand, Deb of Primrose Yellow Photography captures the beauty of floral treasures. After a long career in floral design, she transitioned into photography five years ago, using her design background to create still-life compositions that celebrate their exquisite colour, form, and light, offering images that are both visually striking and quietly emotive. Deb's photographs invite viewers to pause and appreciate the subtle beauty of the natural world. Her framed and unframed work is available at The Mandarine Tree Gallery in Gordonton, Hamilton.

Dessa is a Coromandel based glass mosaic and mixed media artist whose work explores emotional architecture, cultural memory and the reclamation of personal truth. Known for her vibrant colour palettes and intricate layering, she creates contemporary pieces that merge Pasifika heritage, lived experience and bold abstraction. Her practice spans mosaic, painting and sculptural forms, with works exhibited nationally and internationally and held in private collections. Driven by resilience and storytelling, Dessa transforms challenge into beauty, creating artworks that honour identity, self-determination and the power of speaking one’s truth.

Dita Angeles comes from a strong background in portraiture, which evolved over the years into an existential examination of social presentation. She specialises in conceptual photorealist oil paintings and especially likes to use themes centred around behaviour, ego, identity, and anonymity. Angeles has been a professional artist since 2002 and has spent much of her career living in various places around Asia Pacific before returning to New Zealand in 2023. She is represented by Boyd-Dunlop Gallery, NZ, and Lethbridge Gallery, AU.

Don is inspired by the natural world, from the microscopic to the massive. Don love organic, tactile structures and forms, using solid timbers, or steel or plywood to create his visions of those natural designs. He loves designing and making pieces that often end up different to how he imagined at the start. That's his process, working things out as they go.

Ehetere Rua (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Cornwall) is an interdisciplinary artist using creativity as a means of connection, co-dreaming, communication, and becoming. Based on the outskirts of Tāmaki Makaurau, her practice cross-pollinates itself as an accomplished street dancer, colourful surrealist painter, and distinctive designer. In the realm of painting, her colourful surrealist compositions have been exhibited in creative spaces across Aotearoa and as part of creative community ensembles. Her most recent project is directing, designing, and dancing ENIGMA, a short dance film that won People’s Choice at the 2025 Aotearoa Street Dance Film Festival – signalling her emergence as a powerful storyteller.

Wellington artist Em Wafer is known for her award-winning surreal dreamscapes and microcosmic worlds. She exhibits locally and internationally and has collectors worldwide. Her work addresses the subconscious, where a multitude of perspectives exist: the unique and the universal. Glimpses of places deeply felt yet never fully articulated connect us all and allow us room for reflection.

Esther Bunning has been creating beautiful, distinctive images for over 30 years. She has a gift for seeing the unseen, revealing the small, beautiful details that make people and places feel alive and real. Known for her artistic experimentation, Esther brings a playful edge to her photography. A Nikon Ambassador for New Zealand and an Asukabook Ambassador for Australasia, her art is recognised locally and internationally.

Esther is a full-time artist who exhibits both in New Zealand and overseas and has sold over 800 artworks worldwide. Her mixed media inventions, using hand-painted shattered glass and LED lights, are now dominating her most popular works. She has lived in many places but now resides in the beautiful Bay of Islands. Her works are often dreamlike and melodramatic, exploring how we remember places and our emotional links to them. She has a strong connection to nature, and her intense emotional energy can be felt in her paintings. When not painting, Esther loves hiking in the hills, and she volunteers for Land Search and Rescue.

FLOX is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most recognisable artistic voices — a self-made creative whose signature stencil style and vibrant, nature-inspired works have evolved from the street to the studio, and now into a globally minded lifestyle brand. With roots in urban art and a deep reverence for the land, FLOX bridges the worlds of fine art, public art, and functional design. Her murals, workshops, and collections, spanning limited-edition prints, private commissions, personal stationery, and luxury accessories, are a celebration of bold colour, cultural connection, and artistic integrity. FLOX represents a modern, elevated take on New Zealand creativity — crafted with care, grounded in story, and designed to stand proudly on the world stage.

Fraser “Fraz” Williamson is an addlepated messer-upper of perfectly good art boards, which suffer the indignity of his being “at sea” both daily and in the darkling hours. Dreams of the ocean, large swimming mammals, and tigers appear, along with heterodox ruminations on Life and life. He works in acrylic on board mostly and is laughed at by his “big brush” contemporaries regarding the Dalí-esque one-hair brushes he can tend to. However, his works adorn the walls of Sweden, Australia, America, Spain, and London, and his narrative dreamscapes dazzle with their colourful liveliness (unless they’re monotones, of course!).

Waikato-based artist Gaen creates geometric abstractions and landscapes that distil nature’s splendour into minimalist form. Working in acrylic on board and canvas, he begins with landscape photography, selecting regional colour palettes and reducing each scene to its essential structure, echoing Cubist principles. Inspired by New Zealand’s dramatic terrains—especially dawn and dusk light—he has travelled widely, also drawing on iconic landscapes abroad. His works appear in private collections across New Zealand and internationally.

The common thread that influences all of Hayley Elliott-Kernot’s creative work is stories. Reading, telling, and re-telling tales has always been an integral part of her life — from her love of reading and creating fantasy worlds as a child, to illustrating children’s books, to her continuing passion for mythology, history, and legends. Portraits are the main subject of her artwork because she is drawn to faces. A person’s face is like the cover of a book, concealing years’ worth of stories intricately entwined to weave the fabric of who they are. In every human there are countless strands — love, hope, pain, fear, friendship — and the face becomes the doorway to the greatest and most complex tale of all.

Heather Wilson is a self-taught artist based in Napier, New Zealand, whose work radiates joy and playfulness. Known for her distinctive use of texture, bold colours, and a touch of nostalgia, Heather’s art stands out with a 3D quality that captivates viewers. Her creations are crafted with acrylic and mixed media on canvas and board, often featuring resin effects that bring a vibrant depth to each piece. Influenced by the geometric patterns and lively spirit of the 1960s and 70s, Heather draws inspiration from her own happy and carefree childhood, infusing her work with elements of Kiwiana and iconic imagery.

Ingrid Boot is a professional artist living in Auckland, New Zealand, mainly creating figurative oil paintings. Inspired by the fashion photographers found in vintage Vogue magazines, her work always shows beauty and timeless elegance.

"For over 30 years I have found passion for my artwork in nature. The paintings, whether they are the flowers, abstractions or landscapes are predominantly about stopping and just being in the moment. I have a love for oil paint and the way it moves and glows, it is a constant fascination to me. It is this quality that pushes me to further explore colour, form and movement in all my art. I want to capture a timeless quality in my work, something that becomes a meaningful part of your life. You will observe and engage differently every time you view it. Inhaling the beauty of something that has been created." Jane

Janice Napper is a contemporary Auckland artist whose work celebrates the vitality, rhythm, and spirit of the natural world. As an early adopter of resin-based mediums and liquid acrylics, Janice’s distinctive fluid painting style is often experimental, combining spontaneous abstraction with refined realism to capture the beauty and essence of nature in motion. Originally from Otago, she is deeply inspired by the southern landscapes, light, and beauty of Aotearoa. Themes of renewal and connection weave through her artworks, capturing nature in motion — from cascading waterfalls and birds in flight to the delicate shimmer of native flora.

Jan Oram loves extending an animal’s personality through fashion and accessories — imagining what they would wear if they could!

Jasmine communicates the places she has been, from her physical and metaphysical being, into abstracts created with natural intuition, travelling through a serendipitous journey. There is a force which guides her from the core of existence itself. She translates from the subconscious and delivers using techniques gifted from the rhythms of the greater heartbeat. She is driven toward the connection between humanity and the natural environments in which we interact within an ancient and modern existence.

Finding enjoyment in nature and creation, portrait artist Jenna Billman paints to share the special connection held between humans and nature. Through thoughtful compositions and emotion in her subject matter, Jenna uses space, harmony, and intent to amplify storytelling in her art practice.

Jeremy McCormick is gaining rapid recognition for his vibrant and impactful artwork within New Zealand and around the globe. He is an experienced self-taught artist whose paintings blend hyper-realism and surrealism, often featuring wildlife set against striking landscapes and urban, graffiti-covered streets. Jeremy's works tell cautionary stories about the consequences of humanity's impact on nature, depicting wildlife in constant rebellion and envisioning a future where the natural world reclaims urban environments. His compositions reflect a profound depth of thought and convey a meaningful message about humanity's relationship with existence.

Jessie Christieson is a self-taught intuitive expressionist artist, channelling vibrant energy and raw emotion through colour, movement, and texture. A deep connection to her faith fuels her creative process, guiding her to express a profound sense of joy, hope, and healing. Jessie’s work bursts with bold colours, intricate textures, and dynamic movement, seeking to reflect not only the complexity and chaos of life, but the joy found in unexpected journeys. Jessie’s work invites deep personal connection and interpretation.

Jessie Macaw is an acrylic and mixed media intuitive painter from Tairua. Colour, texture, and mark making are constant themes in her work and, as an intuitive painter, she lets the painting direct her. For her, the journey is just as, if not more, important than the destination. The layers are created to reflect current moments in time; emotions, thoughts, and ideas. She seeks to impart a sense of vitality, humour, and joy — a celebration of colour and quirks.

New Zealand contemporary artist Koratoras integrates Abstract Expressionism and Māori themes in painting, sculpture, and printmaking. His art, deeply rooted in whakapapa and personal narrative, explores cultural identity and the universal human experience. Koratoras revitalises traditional Māori forms and ancestral knowledge within a modern context, offering authentic insights into heritage, resilience, and the Māori worldview.

Born in New Zealand, Joanne works from her studio in Christchurch. Her paintings are informed by a variety of subjects, including history, advertising, a concern for the natural environment, and everyday situations. Satire and irony provide the basis for many artworks that delight in taking the mickey out of everything and anything. With an interest in fine detail, her work is defined by the use of bold design and colour, which dances on the canvas and draws the eye around the scene. Joanne has exhibited throughout New Zealand and in New York. She has work in collections in Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy (Benetton Collection), the United States, and Australia.

Jo Kreyl is a New Zealand artist with a background in illustration and design, graduating from a three-year visual communication and design degree in 1991. Her work is deeply inspired by the meticulous beauty of 15th- and 16th-century Dutch masters, whose influence shapes her luminous still-life paintings. Whether portraying delicate florals or nostalgic vintage toys, Jo seeks to capture a single, resonant moment in time—an image suspended between observation and memory. Endlessly curious, she finds fascination in almost everything, and painting has become her way of documenting the subjects that spark her imagination and give shape to her quiet wonder.

In his paintings, Jorg reconstructs aspects of natural forms and textures. His intention is to bring the viewer into a world that they are familiar and comfortable with. Jorg would like the viewer to connect subconsciously, to be drawn into discovering the paintings’ aspects, and to be enriched by the formal beauty of the abstract form. Jorg is a full-time artist and has, for over ten years, sold many of his works through selected galleries in New Zealand, and to clients in Australia, Europe, and the USA. He often creates large commissioned paintings for private customers and corporations.

Award-winning New Zealand artist Juliet Best creates luminous, sculptural landscapes defined by luxurious hand-gilded gold leaf and bold impasto terrain. Each work is richly textured, uniquely catching and reflecting light, enhanced by jewel tones and deep earthy hues that evoke ocean, coastline, and vast skies. Her original paintings glow with an understated radiance, while limited editions offer velvety depth. A recipient of the New Zealand Millennium Landscape Art Award 2024, Juliet has been artist-in-residence for Life Flight Helicopter and Air New Zealand’s Wellington Koru Lounges. Her work is collected worldwide.

Kayla Bacon is an emerging artist living in the small beach town of Raglan, New Zealand. Influenced by the light-hearted and funky qualities of 1970s wallpaper design, her work looks towards social change and action by reflecting on the past. Deepening her inquiry into geometric abstraction, her work plays with colour and illusion. Combining digital and analogue practices, she creates 3D wall-hanging paintings that manipulate perception and produce a sense of movement.

Kennan Faber is a multidisciplinary artist specialising in egg tempera painting and mixed media sculpture. Their work is inspired by their university studies in anthropology, leading them to explore themes of human nature and agency. Their current body of work explores the overwhelming fear of extinction and the agency we have in the end of the world.

Kirsty is a full-time artist, exhibiting, participating in major New Zealand art shows, and selling in several leading galleries throughout New Zealand. Since her upbringing on a remote farm in the hills of the Wairarapa, Kirsty has been left with a legacy of love for our landscape and native bush. Attending Massey University, Kirsty gained a Bachelor of Design, falling in love with the print room along the way. Now living on the rugged south coast, Kirsty translates this love of landscape from her sketchbooks into fine art, using layers of texture and tone through multiple printmaking processes. Her work is highly original and imbued with her passion for the beauty and stories of Aotearoa.

Kyle Ratana is a Toi Māori artist who brings his mauri (essence) and style into this taonga art form. He is blessed to be utilising the markings of his ancestors to carve a path forward into the future, honouring his culture. He creates Toi Māori artworks that tell sacred stories of his culture, honour the environment, and all the beautiful creatures that dwell within it.

Larisa finds inspiration through the often-overlooked beauty of empaths who are grounded in who they are and how they express this quiet confidence in the world. Her work mainly features female subjects in an abstract-realism style, portraying the quiet strength and understated beauty of those with an introspective nature. Larisa’s pieces are often paired with animals, florals, or nature-based landscapes, highlighting the sacred connection between individuals and the natural world. Larisa’s work inspires feelings of empowerment and authenticity, encouraging viewers to radiate their true selves to the world and, in doing so, bringing to light the beauty within.

Laya Rasooli (Afghan-born, based in Tāmaki Makaurau) is a painter whose abstract, textured figurative works explore what home and belonging mean after displacement. Having moved between countries since childhood, she layers colour, gesture, and pattern with memories and family stories to hold moments of vulnerability, resilience, and joy, inviting viewers to find their own journeys inside the work.

Linda McFetridge is a New Zealand artist whose work explores light, reflection, and the quiet strength found in nature’s landscapes. Her paintings capture moments of stillness and transition — places where time, memory, and emotion converge. Often inspired by rivers, coastlines, and lighthouses, Linda’s work invites contemplation and connection, reflecting her interest in how we navigate change and seek balance. With a background in theatre and movement direction, her practice is grounded in rhythm and presence, blending intuition with structure. Each piece is both a meditation and a story — a way of seeing the world anew.

Liz Sofield works mainly with paper and thread. Through her use of geometric patterning and delicate stitching, she evokes a sense of calmness. Trained in interior and textile design, Liz established her artistic practice whilst living in a remote mining town in Western Australia for a short period in 2014 and started using paper and thread as art materials were not readily available. Over the last few years, Liz has been creating earth pigments from Brisbane and Whangarei coastal rocks, as well as naturally dyed cotton thread, which she incorporates into her textile paper art. She runs online workshops through Artisan Queensland and is a member of the international Paper Artist Collective and IAPMA.

Liz’s artwork ventures into an imaginary, beautiful natural world with touches of impression and abstraction. She is passionate about rediscovering and depicting our natural landscape, with a nod to those places we see only in our minds and somewhere we wish to escape to. Her paintings may evoke the memories and emotions held close to the heart. “I paint to bring joy and beauty into lives and homes, to create an emotional connection to my artwork by capturing mood and feeling. My paintings are atmospheric and moody, yet calming and harmonious.” Liz’s artworks have found homes in Hong Kong, the UK, Jersey, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand through exhibitions and galleries. One of her artworks featured recently in NZ Home and Garden magazine in a contemporary Wellington rebuild.

Logan Bow is a Mount Eden-based artist currently studying a con-joint master degree in architecture and urban design at the University of Auckland. Known for captivating sculptural works, Logan's artworks delves into an immersive exploration of natural textures found in hand-picked New Zealand shells. Each piece is an expression of preservation, seeking form by embracing the themes of flow, arrangement and colour. Logan additionally navigates the practice of volumetric origami by thermo-forming polymethyl methacrylate. This dual series of works is a vibrant ode to the cycles and forms existing in the world, ranging from circular motifs to organic figurations.

Madi MacKay is a New Zealand–based mixed media artist inspired by the emotional power of landscape and colour. Her work explores the connection between place and feeling, using layered techniques and intuitive colour palettes to create uplifting, expressive pieces. Rather than replicating specific locations, Madi paints the mood of a moment — the calm of open space, the energy of bold hues, and the quiet shifts of light that shape how we experience the world.

Mandy creates fun, modern, stylised portraits and figurative paintings that blend Pop Art influences with realism. Working in both oils and acrylics, her art is bold, expressive, and full of personality. Mandy loves exploring new ideas and creating different bodies of work rather than sticking to one fixed style. Each series marks a new chapter in her creative journey, while her commissioned pieces subtly shift and grow as her style continues to evolve. After more than 20 years of painting, Mandy is still learning, experimenting, and having fun in the studio. With endless creative possibilities ahead, she feels like she’s only just getting started. Inspired by everyday life, colour, and human connection, she embraces the twists and turns of the artistic journey and invites you to come along for the ride.

Born in Asolo in Northern Italy, Marco Baldisser grew up within a tradition of fine craftsmanship and decorative arts. Now based in New Zealand, he continues this heritage through Venetian plaster and authentic Italian surface techniques, refining historical methods through a contemporary lens. As the master artisan behind Artemani Surfaces, he is known for his bespoke finishes across architectural and interior projects. His current work focuses on sculptural wall artworks and decorative reliefs, developing a visual language that bridges past and present while bringing the expressive depth of Italian plaster into today’s interiors.

Mauricio Benega, born in São Paulo, Brazil, is a full-time artist based in Okato, New Zealand. He holds degrees in Visual Arts, School Administration, and Motion Graphics. Founder of Studio Benega Ltd, Mauricio creates murals, paintings, illustrations, and more. His work appears in collections across 10+ countries and has earned multiple awards. He’s exhibited in over 40 shows, including EAST Biennial, Imago Mundi, and The Big Hoot. A five-time Contemporary NZ Art Calendar selectee, he’s featured in Auckland Art in the Park (2022–2023, 2025) and continues to inspire through workshops, exhibitions and creative collaborations.

Meg Gaddum grew up on a remote Gisborne farm, surrounded by nature and art. Encouraged by artist relatives, she began painting early, inspired by vivid materials like French pastels. Though a science career led her into agriculture, horticulture, and, via a master’s degree in landscape architecture, she ultimately returned to art. Self-taught through books and online courses, Meg now paints abstract landscapes that reflect environmental and social themes while aiming to evoke joy. She lives with her husband and dogs by Ōhiwa Harbour, exhibits at art shows, and sells her work from her studio. Her art blends observation, critique, and sustainability.