Trained through photography, realised through paint.
From photography to painting, a practice shaped by observation, restraint and symbolism.
I worked as a photographer for many years, learning how to see through light, framing, and precision. That way of working shaped my eye, but over time it began to feel too fast and too resolved.
Painting offered a different relationship with images. It slowed the process down and allowed decisions to unfold gradually rather than all at once.
I now work primarily in oil, using realism as a starting point rather than an end. My paintings often begin with familiar objects or scenes, which are reworked and rearranged until something less obvious begins to surface. I’m drawn to the space where beauty and discomfort sit side by side, and where an image resists being fully explained.
Returning to painting later than I expected has sharpened my sense of time. There is a constant tension between ambition and refinement, between wanting momentum and choosing care. That tension has become part of the work itself.
I live and work in New Zealand.