Sofia Athineou is a full-time artist of Greek heritage, based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her practice is mainly in glass, a medium she sees as having many sensual and optical qualities. Surrounded by the dramatic bush of Auckland’s west coast Waitakere Ranges, it’s easy to see the inspiration behind Sofia Athineou’s incredible glass sculptures. These pieces represent vitality through light, texture and colour and appear to blend into the ever-changing landscape. Elemental forces such as wind, fire and water and the constant movement and natural patterns of these elements are captured in her ..read more

Andrew J. Steel is a New Zealand contemporary artist with a passion for story telling. Over his career he has worked across the mediums of graffiti, public art, private interiors, fine artwork, letterpress, land, body, photography and digital works. "An artist's role is to live a remarkable life and report back on it in their work." says Andrew. Andrew makes art to learn more about people & the world, then he retells these stories in his work to offer perspective and peace - both for himself and for others seeking comfort through the arts. In this episode we talk about a traumatic event in ..read more

Here's a step by step account of the mural making process - I hope it's useful! The creative process and approach for this mural project at Glenavon School in Blockhouse Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, was really successful and easy to manage and was great learning for the children involved. 1. Coming up with the design and concept I worked with Jackie Miru-Fransham on the design idea for this mural. Very sadly lovely Jackie passed away after a short illness before the project was started so the school decided to go ahead with the mural in honour of Jackie, a much loved staff member and friend ..read more

Tanya Blong was our very first guest on the Creative Matters podcast and lucky for us she is back 96 episodes later to talk about her artistic journey since March 2021 and how her practice has developed and evolved. In this episode we start by talking about the Creative Matters podcast, how it has evolved over the last 2 and a half years since I first interviewed Tanya in episode 1 and my goals for the podcast going forward. Tanya talks about her upcoming solo show State of Leisure at Allpress Studio in Tāmaki Makaurau which opens on November 2nd and runs until December 1st. She shares her ide ..read more

Toby Raine is a contemporary artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. He has a distinctive approach to his work, moving large quantities of oil paint across the surface of a canvas with confident strokes, creating expressive, emotive, gestural paintings. Toby spent eleven years studying at Elam School of Fine Art in Auckland, beginning in 2006 when he was 23-years-old. Over the next decade he would go on to complete a degree, then a masters, then a doctorate in Fine Arts. In this episode Toby talks about how he chooses his subjects, how he achieves the delicate balance between representatio ..read more

Matthew Browne is an abstract painter living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Born in London UK, he relocated to New Zealand in 1991. Matthew's striking geometric paintings feature sharp lines with bold, experimental colour palettes. His process starts in exploring formal relationships in colour and form and develops greater complexity as the work progresses. He has been making and showing paintings and sculptures for more than 40 years. After many years of teaching visual arts in both the community and tertiary sectors, Matthew founded his very own art school Browne School of Art in 2013. We have ..read more

Abstract artist Evan Woodruffe lives in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He is a well known, much loved figure in the NZ art world. Evan is an artist with many threads to his practice. Most of his time is spent making work for exhibitions, projects, and commissions. He's also the “product specialist” for Gordon Harris, running workshops and writing editorial for their art stores. He is one of six Global Brand Ambassadors for both Schmincke Artist Colours and da Vinci Artist Brushes in Germany. He teaches at Browne School of Art in Auckland and he is an active advocate for the visual arts, a collector ..read more

Sean Beldon is a South African born, Auckland-based artist best known for his large New Zealand landscape paintings. His style is mostly painterly with a modernist feel. For more than a decade, Sean has been photographing and painting landscapes from the far north to the deep south of Aotearoa. He finds his inspiration on road trips throughout the country and only paints places he has been. Even though his compositions will be quite abstract at times, the scene always originate with what he sees through the camera’s viewfinder – his primary canvas - and every painting has a story to tell. Sean ..read more

Jasmine Kroeze is an an artist and textile designer living in Papamoa near Mt Maunganui. With a background in the fashion and textile design industry, Jasmine fell into the art world through painting large scale murals as a passion project and now she applies the same creative process to her original paintings and digital artworks. Jaz enjoys working with commercial clients and interior and product designers and she has collaborated with many well known companies such as Kathmandu and Bolt of Cloth. Her designs have been printed on stationery and textiles, installed in private homes and commer ..read more

Elliot Love is a contemporary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. His hyper realistic paintings depict cars from the 80's and 90's era set within a city's still and lifeless urban environment. Elliot works in oil on canvas, often on an unusually small scale. Many of the cars he paints are reaching the end of their lifespan - several of the cars he has painted no longer exist. With this in mind, Elliot looks to convey not just a moment in time, but the passing of an era. Elliot talks about how he gave up art at school in year 13 and went on to study PE at Uni for one year before realisin ..read more