EARTH TONES

Until now, I have regarded colour as just another category; a way to differentiate paintings whether they be white, monochrome or coloured. Through my recent focus on earth tones, I have discovered the properties and provenance of certain pigments leading me on a journey of discovery. It has reconnected my work to my early art heroes of Aotearoa, notably Colin McCahon. It has also placed my paintings in an older, more ancient context, connecting it to renaissance artists and most notably landscape painters.

TERRA D’OMBRA 

2026 AOTEAROA ART FAIR

30 April - 3 May 2026

The Cloud, Auckland, courtesy of Black Door Gallery

For this series I chose to use a limited palette of Yellow oxide, raw umber and burnt umber. Learning of the history and provenance of the pigments changed my understanding of the way colour works and how traditional artists, particularly landscape artists, use it. Terra D’Ombra, is Italian for a paint known as burnt umber, and literally means “shadow land”, connecting more directly to a topographical reading of my work.

BURNT OFFERINGS

Muse Art Gallery

7 July - 6 Aug 2026

A recent encounter with two devastating fires in the space of four weeks, one a few doors from where I live and another outside my studio, left me in awe of its destructive power. The experience felt a mix of emotions from fear, vulnerability, concern for those affected and gratitude that I personally didn’t suffer.

Wandering amongst the burnt landscape outside my studio, I was struck by the beauty of it all: the metal struts that had once held the roof of the shed aloft were weirdly twisted, a testament to the intensity of the blaze. Rusted wire netting and corrugated iron sheets had collapsed in a heap from the lack of support. The fascinating wreckage of a burnt out truck which had been parked next to the shed, it’s tyres melted exposing the steel wire inside normally never seen. Most beautiful were the stacks of charred wood all neatly piled up, black and gnarly.

Over the months it stood unchanging, I saw familiar scenes played out nightly on the news in places like Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. We are all connected. It dawned on me that the colours I was painting with, the burnt umber, burnt Sienna were also connected in an elemental way to the fires. I gathered charcoal from the wreckage and ground it to dust in an ancient coffee grinder mixing it with a binding agent so I could turn it into paint. It felt right to include the raw material from the fire into my new works which would become Burnt Offerings.

TRUTH

The Tau cross is a T-shaped cross resembling the Greek letter tau or the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It represents a significant Christian symbol of salvation, penance, and Franciscan spirituality.

Central to my work is the illusion of spatial depth to raise questions of perception and consciousness. Stencilling the T shape over the painted creases interferes with the picture plane, revealing the deception that the canvas is in fact flat. It also connects my work to that of Colin McCahon, the iconic New Zealand painter, and his series of paintings, Truth From The King Country, questioning the legitimacy of Colonial land grabs.

There are obvious parallels with our current Post-Truth era where lies told often enough become accepted as Truth. Trust is low and societies tear each other apart.