From words to images

I started painting because I wanted to make sense of experiences that were beyond the language of words. It was more of a prompting than a decision. At the time I was writing feature articles for New Zealand magazines, so for years I had the opportunity to really listen to and witness people’s stories and convey their essence to readers. 

But after more than a decade of working with words, something else was seeking expression. It was subtle, unseen, unsaid and soulful. The soul speaks in music, movement, metaphor...and image.

I started to paint.

"If I could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint." Edward Hopper

Painting the invisible...?

When I began painting I'd just moved to the coast for the first time, plus I was beginning to play a lot of music as part of my creative process. This combo re-arranged and re-tuned my being. I painted boats, musical instruments and hands, and gradually dynamic patterns started emerging in the space around each subject, enfolding and enlivening them. 

And so began my journey into energetic vibration - nature’s own pattern language. It’s a language that belongs to all of us but that most of us have forgotten. The plants, the creatures, the oceans and the cosmos still remember. My paintings help remind us too of these energetic fields that form and inform us, and they seem to stir some long-ago recognition of living as more full-sized humans. 

Once upon a painting...

Over the last couple of decades the paintings have continued to evolve. Some evoke deep soulful responses, some seem to be showing us something, and some are simply playful. 

As I balance life's pragmatic expectations with its more soulful sensitivities, I continue to write articles including a regular column for NZ Gardener magazine which nurtures my parallel passion for plants. So my storytelling craft has kept pace with its non-verbal painting partner. 

Most of my paintings are wrapped in stories of why and how they were born, and I’m now starting to weave the words and the images together. It's time to tell more of their tales and to let them tease us with their magic and mystery. See the first of these on my blog, Once upon a painting... 

Once upon a painting...

My studio

I live and work from my tiny studio on the coast in the far north of New Zealand where the earth, the sea, and the sky are nourishing on every level. Here we can walk barefoot, we swim in the sea, and we sit around fires under the stars. Sometimes dolphins and orcas cruise past on their seasonal pathways. Ancient basalt columns broadcast from their coastal cliffsides. And kiwi calls massage the night air. All of this naturally connects us to something greater than ourselves, and to each other. 

Free Print

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"I am truly honoured to eventually have one of your works - especially one which means so much to me. You possibly don't know how much." Ger

"The two paintings have given my heart a song of remembrance and my soul a place of uplift." Simone