Studio Insights - June 2025
CREATE: What I’ve created/done & what I’m working on.
INSPIRE: What art has inspired me.
LEARN: What I’m learning to develop my practice.
PLAN: What I’m planning next.
“What I give form to in daylight is only one percent of what I have seen in darkness.”
I felt a large weight off my shoulders after finishing with the NZ Art Show last month, marking the end of an era as I’ve decided to take a break from going to these shows (for now). This has allowed me to now give my November solo show ‘The Castle in the Sky’ my full undivided attention. I had felt I should take an extended break, but found I couldn’t stop brewing up ideas for the exhibition and got too excited not to get started right away.
Table of Contents:
CREATE: Punaka at Te Papa
INSPIRE: Nurture & Loemis Art Show
LEARN: Anamorphic Illusions
PLAN: 30 Days 30 Studies Challenge
CREATE: Punaka at Te Papa
This month, my studio was generously invited to exhibit for Te Papa’s Matariki family day, where we showed off our handmade structure made for an exhibition earlier in the year. It was a great opportunity to engage with the wider community and bring our creation out of storage. We all took turns standing by to greet the public and invite them to engage with our creation - it’s intended to be enjoyed from inside the hut.
Alongside, we had studio member AJ hosting a Porotiti workshop. This is a simple Maori instrument made from a carved disk which is spun between the hands on twin strings to produce a noise. I gave it a go and eventually got the hang of it - so satisfying when you do!
I also joined a pretty impromptu group exhibition with Fishcube gallery, where I showed the Wellington set of my Urban Solitude series again. If you’ve never been, this is a small gallery/cafe on Dixon Street with super funky works on display and an awesome crew. I hope to work with them again in the future!
INSPIRE: Nurture & Loemis Art Show
Nurture was an exhibition at Twentysix with paintings from Alice Toomer and Benjamin Cotter. An absolutely stunning display, their two styles and subject matter complemented each other so well. I loved the use of small-scale pieces with stunning wide frames in unique styles, which gave each piece a statement of its own.
The Loemis Art Show and Market was held at Thistle Hall. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around and chatting with a few different familiar faces in the stalls. These incredible sculptures by Bill Hunt stood out to me the most. How fun they must have been to make!
LEARN: Anamorphic Illusions
This month I’ve been super busy sketching, drafting, practising, researching and learning techniques all in preparation for a large-scale painting I’m crafting for my solo exhibition. This includes relearning perspective drawing skills (turns out I’m a lot rustier than I realised) and taking an overly deep dive into the fascinating history of anamorphic illusions in art.
Anamorphic illusion, also known as anamorphosis, is an optical trick where an image appears distorted unless viewed from a specific angle or with the aid of a device.
I’ve forever been fascinated by geometry and illusions within art, ever since I came across the genius M.C. Escher. I’ve always wanted to implement these techniques into my art, but many can be quite complex and hard to wrap your head around. It’s taken me weeks to feel like I have enough of a grasp on the concept to implement on my own, after being endlessly astounded by the workings of old masters who did these all without the use of computers. I found myself lost in quite the rabbit hole of research, struggling to find clear answers. Eventually I found that looking into the techniques used by 3D chalk artists was most helpful.
More on the technique:
Skip this if you aren’t trying it yourself, I’m just explaining so I don’t contribute to my own research problem - lots of talk about anamorphic illusions but not expaining how it’s actually done.
I ended up this technique: Draw a grid, then stand in the intended viewing spot and take a photo. I would then place my elements on this photo, and stretch back out to a square grid to get the final warped version. This is a simplified version, compared to work by Kurt Wenner which takes into account the curviture of the eye. As such the effect actually works best through the camera, but is still quite effective in person.
These videos were helpful in learning the technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERB8vjFwjX8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Wv7A8vQpk&t=286s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms1CbzNNHhA
If you’ve read this far, I’ll give a sneak peek into a bit of my ideas - most I’m leaving secret for the exhibition. One theme underpinning my exhibition is all about perspective - specifically the unique viewpoint created by my creative mind while out and about delivering. I’m trying to create a painting which, when viewed from a specific perspective, shows a hidden scene. I’ve spent a while sketching, adjusting and testing, and I’m quite excited for it all to come together. Here’s hoping it translates well to a large-scale painting.
PLAN: 30 Days 30 Studies Challenge
In preparation for my upcoming solo show, I’m painting a series of small studies for each day of July. 30 scenes have been chosen from 350+ images, all taken on my phone while out delivering as a courier. This is in keeping with the exhibition theme, which will become clearer later.
I have panels of various sizes to choose from, each matching repurposed frames. I have also created a list of 30 unique painting challenges - inspired by my fun with rubber ducks last year.
E.g. ‘Paint with your non-dominant hand’ or ‘Limited brushstrokes’
Each day, I will be randomly assigned a scene and a challenge.
Challenge rules:
Each study to be completed start to finish within 2 hours, or less if specified
Using only Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber and White
Each scene and challenge is randomly assigned. I may choose an appropriately sized panel to paint on from the pool.
Timelapse & Final result to be posted every day by 1 pm.
At the time of posting this update, I’ve already completed 6 paintings, and it’s been a lot of fun! Definitely make sure you tune in for the rest.