2019-2020

I have continued developing my “Woman” series throughout the year. The physical cuts in the painted canvases describe the surgical cuts made into a woman’s body during childbirth. These medical procedures result in permanent scarring, weakening of the body, and often mockery and rejection by the men whose children they bear. 

While the surface colours and textures of the painting may be beautiful - just as women enhance their beauty through cosmetics, clothing, etc – the cuts reveal a different story, usually hidden from view and not discussed.

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2019

In a world overloaded with waste products, we are constantly reminded of the importance of recycling wherever possible. In April 2019 I took part in a month-long arts residency in Venice – a city that has been recycling its very fabric for over 1000 years.

Everything is patched up a million times over, but somehow this adds to the beauty of this old lady, Venice. Even the graffiti - which many see as a scourge – often seem to be added with love. I included them, and other images and patterns I saw in Venice, in works created on various types of used packaging cardboard, a material that is sent for recycling (or the landfill) in vast quantities. A number of the works also include brick debris fallen from Venetian buildings.

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2020

The English poet John Milton invented the word pandemonium as the name for the capital of Hell, in his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). It derives from the Greek words “pan” ("παν"), meaning "all" or "every", and “daemonium” ("δαιμόνιον"), a diminutive form meaning "little spirit", "little angel", or, as Christians interpreted it, "little daemon", and later, "demon". In modern English, pandemonium has come to mean a wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or utter chaos.

On 20 November 2019, Timaru was hammered by a destructive hail storm. The sky turned black and the approaching storm was heralded by a terrific roaring sound. Giant hail stones – some as big as hen’s eggs and golf balls – smashed roofs, windows and cars, stripped trees bare, and shredded home gardens. Some businesses were forced to close temporarily and emergency services throughout the city were stretched. After a night of extreme thunder and lightning, parts of the town remained covered in drifts of frozen hail that lasted for much of the next day. The resulting insurance bill for $170 million made it New Zealand’s costliest weather event this century, and one of the top five most expensive natural disasters since records began in 1968.

I responded to the panic and pandemonium resulting from this event of Nature with a mixed media series using pieces of hail-damaged acrylic sheeting, broken glass, recycled packaging, and “emergency orange” spray paint.

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2020

I recently turned to an earlier series, "Wrinkled Bellies" (1984-5), for inspiration. That series comprised wall hangings knitted on circular needles. The hangings were created in wool because the fibre reminds me of the softness and elasticity of skin, and because in our country working in wool has been traditionally the work of women, and above all, of mothers. 

As a child, I was disturbed by the lines on my mother’s stomach. Later, as a mother myself, I found similar wrinkles and marks on my own belly and, studying them, began to see them as no longer ugly, but symbolic of motherhood. I see beauty in these lines. Just as there is softness in the breast, so too there is softness in the lines of childbirth.

I have now developed these ideas in a series of drawings and paintings titled "Life-lines", reflecting the marks which connect women globally as evidence of the universal phenomenon of childbirth - an experience which brings not only pain, but also joy and hope for the future. 

During the period of isolation enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic - a time of separation from those we love because of an invisible virus - I also began to think of these marks as the lines of communication that connect all of us: the lines of essential supplies delivered by transport and supermarket workers, the health-care and financial life-lines that are supporting our communities.

 My work is predominantly a reflection of the struggle and passage through chaos, particularly that experienced by all women. My desire is that one day we will all emerge to a new order of equality, consideration and fairness.

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2020

Trees, like women, give us life. As the poet, Mary Oliver, said, “When I am among the trees … they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.” (Mary Oliver, When I Am Among The Trees, 2006)

Trees add beauty to our surrounds, and provide us with shelter and food. They are living, sentient beings. They give us hope for a planet that is in peril. And yet we mould, mutilate and destroy them.

This year, I lost a battle to save a beautiful, mature Dawn Redwood that had been growing for over 60 years in the garden alongside a shared drive to my property. It was brutally (and illegally) chopped down by neighbours who apparently prefer concrete and stones to a garden.  The stump was reduced to mulch. Large sections of trunk and limbs were carted off to be wastefully burnt as firewood, releasing tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. I have also watched with dismay the limbs of an even older Copper Beech lopped off by other neighbours because it dropped leaves on their lawn.

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2020

During the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, my thoughts turned to the magical time I had spent in Venice, just a year before. The city seemed even more unreal, like something out of a fairy story. Would the world ever be the same again and would I ever return to a city that I had always loved since my first brief visit in 1971?

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2020

I came across an old toy, probably made about 1920 by a young girl for her toddler brother. A wire form is covered with fine strips of cotton, with soft coloured wool yarn wound over the top. It looks as though it has been loved to bits, and the years and moths have certainly taken their toll on the woollen yarn. This battered toy inspired a group of three monoprints, a medium to which I was introduced at Art School in the late 1970s.

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2021

Another small set of monoprints was motivated by the international MiniPrint Cantabria competition, held at the Faro Cabo Mayor Art Centre, Santander, Spain. The art centre is housed in the former lighthouse of the port city of Santander (owned by the Port Authority) and the theme is always “the sea and the lighthouse”. This can be interpreted either literally or in some related manner. The only specification is that the prints must not be larger than 20 x 20cm. I visited a local lighthouse at Tuhawaiki (Jack’s) Point near Timaru, but, rather than depicting the lighthouse itself, I chose to focus on the light reflecting off the sea in the vicinity.

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2021

During 2021, my favourite aunt Bonnie, my father’s youngest sister and the last of his siblings, passed away. These were spontaneous works, again using the monoprint technique.

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