(b. 1976)

Garden Oasis 2019
Acrylic paint, canvas, perspex box
1000mm x 1000mm

Emma Prill (Bachelor of Visual Arts) is an artist and educator based in Omokoroa, Bay of Plenty. Emma has been a finalist in the Molly Morpeth Awards and the Miles Art Awards and won the 2014 People’s Choice Award. Her installation Colourfield was exhibited in the Tauranga Art Gallery from November 2018 to Feb 2019.

Elaborately painted flowers and foliage are assembled together to capture a unique mood in a moment of time. Emma creates painted forms from canvas, assembling compositions to encompass vibrant colours and multi-textural forms. The flower gardens take several months to make. Unused, frayed ends of canvas are layered with paint to create texture.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.emmaprill.co.nz or follow her on Instagram @emmaprillartist

Artwork commissioned in 2019 by the Chrysalis Collection

Tauranga Icons 2018
Acrylic on canvas
1000mm x 800mm

Rachel Denny is a self taught artist who works from her home studio in Tauranga. Living in New York in her early thirties provided the inspiration for her well known series of cityscapes featuring buildings and skylines taken from photos of New York and San Francisco; the tightly linear frontages are layered over with wild colours which are pure Denny.

Our commissioned cityscape, Tauranga Icons, features the Old Tauranga Post Office and the historic Matapihi Railway Bridge.

You can learn more about this artist by following her on Instagram @racheldennyart

Artwork commissioned in 2018 by the Chrysalis Collection

(b. 1979)

Geometric Landscape II 2016
Crayon (orange), aluminium and timber frame
540mm x 540mm

Geometric Landscape III 2016
Crayon (red), aluminium and timber frame
540mm x 540mm

Kereama Taepa is based in Papamoa and teaches at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology. He graduated from Massey University with a Masters of Maori Visual Arts and Bachelor of Maori Visual Arts (Hons). Kereama’s art is exhibited nationally and internationally, and he has works in collections across New Zealand and abroad. He was the Supreme Award winner of the Molly Morpeth 2D Art Award in 2008 and has created a number of public works including the 4 Plinths Sculpture Project outside Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington and his current installation, Insert Coin, in Tauranga Art Gallery.

Kereama’s work primarily focuses on the fusion of indigenous Maori motif with urban/pop iconography whilst referencing aspects of digital culture and technology. Geometric Landscape II/III were part of Kereama’s solo exhibition, Geo at Helium Gallery, Rotorua in 2016. The show set out to offer an alternative to the conventional use of a drawing medium, the humble crayon. The 2Dimensional plane is filled with repeating 3Dimensional form of different levels, creating digital landscapes of pattern. The patterns themselves draw parallels between the Maori practice of tukutuku and contemporary digital imagery… the old and new geometry together as one.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.kereamataepa.co.nz or follow him on Instagram @kereamataepa

Artworks purchased from the artist

(b. 1949)

Otumoetai Poem 2014
Acrylic on Black Arches paper
1120mm x 760mm (framed)

Born in Invercargill, Brown grew up in Tauranga and was taught by artist Fred Graham at Tauranga Boys' College. The Tauranga Public Library was the venue for his first exhibition in 1963. After completing a BFA at the Elam School of Art, he briefly returned to Tauranga with his young family in 1975. In 2004, Brown was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to painting and printmaking. In 2007, Nigel Brown gifted 44 of his works to the newly constructed Tauranga Art Gallery as well as 39 more works in 2012. He currently resides in Riverton, Southland.

Brown has exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally. He has received numerous awards and is represented in collections of most major public institutions throughout the country. Otumoetai Poem was the first work commissioned from an artist by the Chrysalis Collection.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.nigelbrown.co.nz

Artwork commissioned in 2014 by the Chrysalis Collection

Crotons IV Victoria’s Garden Rarotonga 2014
Acrylic on canvas
1220mm x 910mm

Barry Dabb is an artist, art historian and curator who paints from his home studio in Tauranga. Since the late 1990’s he has been documenting domestic gardens throughout the South Pacific, including locations in Rarotonga, Samoa, Niue and Vanuatu. Each of these lush settings contain species that are often not indigenous to their island habitats. They reflect a subtle form of infiltration both of the flora and the culture that has occurred over many years.

Crotons IV Victoria’s Garden Rarotonga - 2014 was displayed at his 20-year retrospective exhibition “Grafted: Paintings of Contemporary Polynesian Gardens by Barry Dabb” at the Tauranga Art Gallery in 2016/17.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.barrydabb.co.nz

Artwork purchased from Zeus Gallery, Tauranga

(b. 1973)

Run 2014
Screen print and acrylic on board
1205mm x 745mm

Nicol Sanders-O'Shea resides in Tauranga, New Zealand. She has a MFA with first class honours from Elam School of Fine Arts and a post graduate diploma in Tertiary Teaching from AUT. She has taught in several tertiary art & design programmes including AUT, Elam and EIT, and is currently a Programme Manager and Senior Academic Staff member at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology. She was recently made the Chair of Print Council Aotearoa New Zealand to encourage and support the development of printmaking and printmakers nationally.

She has won several awards including the 2015 Waikato Society of the Arts Supreme Award for the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award. She was invited to participate in the Tr6 printmaking installation residency in Manhattan, New York in 2018. Her work has been selected for public gallery exhibitions in New Zealand: Pataka Museum, Hastings City Art Gallery, Gus Fisher Gallery, Tauranga Art Gallery, Calder and Lawson Gallery, Aratoi Museum and Waikato Museum. Her works are held in both public and private collections in New Zealand.

Run was exhibited in East 2014, the biennial exhibition of invited artists presented by the Hastings City Art Gallery in 2014/15. “Depicting the nuclear family in framed moments, Nicol uses appropriated old black and white stylised drawings to historicise her work. She has converted these images into a full colour pop aesthetic to refer to the effects of popular culture and the contemporary mediated context. In this diptych, the safe nuclear family of old are experiencing unsettling realities of our times.” Linda Tyler, Associate Professor Art History and Museums and cultural heritage at University of Auckland.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.nicolsandersoshea.co.nz or follow her on Instagram @nsandersoshea

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1951)

La Moana (Ocean Current) 1974
Oil on canvas
545mm x 550mm (framed)

Elizabeth Grainger grew up in Katikati, attended Tauranga Girls’ High School and graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts from Elam Art School, University of Auckland in 1972. After many years painting and owning galleries in Australia, she returned to New Zealand in 2016. Zeus Gallery, Tauranga, hosted a fifty year retrospective exhibition, “The Visionary Art of Elizabeth Kyle Grainger” in 2018.

Of European descent, Grainger was inspired by Maori traditions and between 1971-1983, created paintings that referenced Maori motifs and iconography. In 1983 she shifted focus and began to explore her own ancestral connections, adopting Celtic signs and symbols in her art.

Artwork purchased from the Treasured Art Auction, Tauranga

(b. 1974)

GE Mandala 7 2016
Pheasant, peacock and turkey feathers
620mm x 620mm (framed)

Fiona Kerr Gedson grew up in Taneatua & Ruatoki, and works from her home near Opotiki, in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. She is well represented around the country and her works have sold to collectors worldwide and are included in international exhibitions.

Fiona’s meticulously crafted feather pieces draw inspiration from the Mandala (Sanskrit for circle), a form which has origins in ancient Buddhism. It is intended to be a ‘collection point of universal forces’ through which the viewer can gain wisdom and happiness.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.fionakerrgedson.com or follow her on Instagram @fionakerrgedsonart

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1963)

Inner Mysteries 2007
Oil and gold leaf on canvas
1200mm x 1000mm

Keith Abbott lives and works in Tauranga. His work is held in private collections in New Zealand and overseas. There is a meditative quality to Keith’s works influenced by Buddhist art and philosophy. Themes he explores include questions of time and place, of belonging and displacement, of masculinity and femininity.
Working with oil and gold leaf gives the work an ancient feeling within a contemporary setting. Apparent is Keith’s strong belief of empty space in art; giving the viewer's eyes time to rest and reflect.

You can learn more about this artist by following him on Instagram @keithabbottart

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1972)

Innocent Bystander 2000
Glazed earthenware
565mm x 170mm

Here 2008
Glazed earthenware (wall rabbits x 3)
80mm x 150mm x 80mm

John Roy is a prominent New Zealand ceramic artist based in Tauranga. He completed a BFA (Ceramics) in 1997 at Whanganui Polytechnic. He has also won multiple awards, including the Premier Award at the New Zealand Society of Potters Exhibition in 2004. John's work is held in a number of public collections including the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Tauranga Art Gallery, Waikato Museum and Art Gallery, the James Wallace Arts Trust collection and the Sarjeant Gallery in Wanganui. In 2012, John was an artist in residence at Tylee Cottage, Whanganui.

Uncle Sam has been used as a vehicle to explore ideas as he provides an easy entry for the viewer to think about the work. Is he a peacemaker or a troublemaker? Interpretations depend upon the viewer and how they interpret the work from their knowledge of historical or even contemporary events. The use of form and imagery within the work is designed to engage the viewer and provoke thought.

In 2008, Tauranga Art Gallery hosted Here: John Roy, a plague of small rabbits on the ground floor of the gallery. Much of Roy’s work revolves around iconic forms that bring with them a preconceived meaning, but that allow him to introduce his own ideas and thoughts that challenge other people’s perception of the object in a subtle way. Roy’s use of pastel colours for the rabbits adds to the allusion. Even the white rabbits hide a subtle tinge of green, much like mould growing on cement. Fifteen of the rabbits are held in the Wallace Arts Trust Collection, Auckland.

You can learn more about by following him on Instagram @johnroyart

Innocent Bystander purchased from private collector

Here purchased from the artist

(b. 1954)

The Fisherman’s Story 2007
Oil on canvas
920mm x 610mm (framed)

Peter Cramond grew up in Te Puke and spent much of his youth catching waves at Maketu and Papamoa. He works from his home studio in Papamoa. From studying graphic art at ATI in Auckland in the early 1970’s, Peter has gone onto develop his distinctive style in sculpture, drawing and painting. He has been a painter and sculptor for over 30 years and has won numerous awards. His work can be found in private collections around the world.

"I've been painting and sculpting for over three decades. I'm influenced by my environment, people around me, and things I see. Both of my mediums are figurative, with symbolic ideas, and I use colours of the Pacific.”

You can learn more about this artist at: www.petercramond.com

Artwork purchased from Harrisons Gallery, Tauranga

(b. 1951)

Circle 2015
Acrylic mediums on board
1000mm x 1000mm

Graham Crow  is a renowned contemporary artist who works from his Maungatapu studio and has a strong history of life drawing and painting. His formal art education was undertaken at the University of Canberra as well as further studies at the Waikato Society of Arts in printmaking. Graham regularly exhibits in Tauranga and his work has been featured in group exhibitions at Tauranga Art Gallery. Graham won the Friends of the Gallery Award with his work titled Shift in the 2016 Miles Art Awards.

Graham’s work is loved for its textural qualities, and subtly takes on the light to present to the viewer changing shades of delicately-crafted colours and patterns. He combines painterly abstraction with illusionism in his physically interactive works.

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1984)

ODe to Keith 2014
Acrylic and ink on canvas
1020mm x 765mm

Born in the small Eastern Bay of Plenty community of Kawerau, Owen Dippie has an intrinsic affinity for Maoritanga and a personal passion for tattoo and ta moko, along with a keen interest in pop culture imagery. He is well known for painting large scale city murals and has worked around New Zealand as well as internationally, including New York. He operated OD Gallery in Mount Maunganui for four years before moving to Auckland. The Larger than Life project has seen a number of masterpieces, some depicting the renaissance period, painted on walls about the Tauranga CBD.

ODe to Keith references the work of Keith Haring, the American artist whose pop art and graffiti-like work grew out of the New York City street culture of the 1980s.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.owendippie.com or follow him on Instagram @owendippie

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1951)

Time is Bleeding – The Dream 2010
Watercolour on paper
415mm x 510mm (framed)

Born in Ruatahuna, Kathryn Madill now lives and works in Dunedin. She majored in printmaking for her Fine Arts degree from the University of Canterbury, graduating in 1971, and exhibits widely throughout New Zealand. She has works in private and public collections here and in Australia.

Solander Gallery, Wellington, exhibited the “Time is Bleeding” suite of watercolour paintings featuring Madill's signature rich, allegorical imagery. Figures emerge from a red forest, fires flare on the plains under a luminous sky, as birds and otherworldly animals move in procession or observe from the borders. The intimate scale of the paintings draws the viewer into this haunting world that feels part fairytale, part dream or premonition.

Artwork purchased from Solander Gallery, Wellington

(b. 1987)

Peaceful Man 2010
Gesso, acrylic and indian ink on canvas
1030mm x 1030mm (framed)

As it should be (Mauao) 2011
Acrylic on canvas
800mm x 800mm (framed)

Elliot Mason was born in Tauranga and is the grandson of George Harrison, founder of Harrisons Gallery, Tauranga. He has a Bachelor of Media Arts, University of Waikato and was the founder and director of Zeus Gallery, Tauranga from 2013-2018.

His work is a stylised reflection of the natural world. He uses rhythmic, organic and geometric forms that are broken down into simple motifs. These can be turned into patterns, replicated and then contoured over blended gradients that represent land, waves, clouds and living beings. He creates patterns that represent the environment they portray, stretched and repeated like fractals multiplying into the distance to create perspective and depth.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.elliotmasonart.co.nz or follow him on Instagram @elliotmason_

Peaceful Man purchased from Harrisons Gallery, Tauranga

As it should be (Mauao) purchased from a private collector

(b. 1957)

Three Stories (Nocturnal Bay Series #3) 2016
Charcoal, polymer ink, pigment and wax on paper
690mm x 880mm (framed)

James Ormsby (MFA, RMIT Melbourne) works from his family home in the Bay of Plenty and is of Ngati Maniapoto, Tainui, Te Arawa and Scottish descent. James has participated in both local and international group exhibitions including Tu: A Place To Stand, Tauranga Art Gallery in 2018 and his work can be found in numerous public collections including Te Papa Tongarewa and The Wallace Trust Art Collection; and private collections throughout New Zealand and overseas. He has been a finalist in both the National Contemporary Art Awards, the Wallace Art Awards as well as the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards. 

Drawing is a passion for James Ormsby. He carries out a huge amount of historical research and questions the significance of the visual symbols his ancestors chose to depict. Mapping a diverse collection of motifs, symbols and iconography he explores issues of whenua, whakapapa and personal belief systems. Three Stories references
• Pukehinahina – a recent history,
• Omanu – a spoken past, and
• Mauao – an ancient myth

You can learn more about this artist at: www.jamesormsby.com

Artwork commissioned in 2016 by the Chrysalis Collection

(b. 1985)

Old Netherton Road, Waihou Valley 2017
Archival pigment print on matte photo rag, edition of 5
850mm x 680mm (framed)

Kate van der Drift is an Auckland based artist who grew up in the Bay of Plenty. Kate graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Electronic Art), Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 2010 and a Postgraduate Diploma of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Art in 2015. She is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Arts at Elam. Kate has participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand.

Often shooting from the end of her kayak, van der Drift’s drive to get the perfect shot always pays off. The soft palette and atmospheric water within her sublime photographs add to the subtlety of the works – often showing both symmetry and reflection. Founded on a steady base of research, the artist looks at the shifting politics of land use. Van der Drift was the recent recipient of the 2018 Stoneleigh Wines Prize for the best New Zealand Artist represented at the Melbourne Art Fair.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.katevanderdrift.com or follow her on Instagram @katevanderdrift

Artwork purchased from Sanderson Gallery, Auckland

(b. 1946)

Home State Home 2012
Acrylic on canvas
1060mm x 800mm (framed)

Raye Catran was born in Tauranga, attended Elam Art School and taught art for several years.  She is a full time artist working from her home studio in Tauriko. Raye won the Ethel McMillan Award at the 2012 Miles Art Awards. Her works are held in private collections throughout New Zealand and overseas.

Her 2013 exhibition at the Tauranga Art Gallery, Raye Catran: State of the House, was inspired by a lifelong interest in houses and curiosity about the people who live in them. She believes that while we have learned to appreciate the heritage of the Victorian villa, we have yet to fully appreciate the rich social and design heritage of the unique New Zealand state house.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.rayecatran.portfoliobox.net

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1959)

Grumpy Bird 2012
Watercolour on paper
725mm x 550mm (framed)

Punk Dog 2012
Watercolour on paper
625mm x 575mm (framed)

Nick Eggleston is a full-time artist and tutor based in Tauranga. Born in Yorkshire, England, he graduated from Chesterfield College of Art and Design in 1981 with a distinction in Ceramics and membership to The Society of Designer Craftsmen. He relocated to New Zealand in 2006.

“Working with watercolour allows me to experience the surprises you get when wet pigment meets wet paper... You can never fully control the results when this happens. It becomes more of a collaboration between the artist, the medium and a third element that is elusive and less tangible.”

You can learn more about this artist at: www.artnik.weebly.com or follow him on Instagram @eggleston.nick

Artwork purchased from a private collector

(b. 1929)

Ambiguous 1, Ambiguous 2
Acrylic on paper
435mm x 800mm (framed)

Decisions
Acrylic on wood
640mm x 640mm (framed)

Doreen McNeill moved to New Zealand in 1987 and lives in Tauranga. Doreen celebrated her 90th birthday this year and continues to paint with passion and gusto. Her work is exhibited in galleries throughout New Zealand. In 2014, Doreen was a finalist in the Molly Morpeth Art Awards and was a winner at the Miles Art Awards - Friends of the Gallery Award.

While not based on any particular geographical feature, the underlying inspiration for Doreen’s artwork comes from the basic elements representing nature. Doreen paints in acrylics and builds up layers of exquisite colour to give the work depth and a vibrant sense of texture.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.doreenmcneill.co.nz or follow her on Instagram @doreen.mcneill

Artworks purchased from Lightwaves Gallery, Mount Maunganui

(b. 1955)

Zephyr 6, Whangaparapara, Great Barrier Island 2011
Acrylic on canvas
1270mm x 510mm

Richard Smith was born and raised in Tauranga and has been painting full-time since 2001. Influences have been the American painter Edward Hopper and a number of New Zealand painters such as Peter McIntyre. An accomplished draughtsman, his paintings are honest interpretations of the subjects he paints.

Richard’s versatility leads him to depict landscape, the marine environment of wharfs and vessels, and buildings of character. The presence of people and relationship with their environment is another theme often explored through paintings of old buildings and structures often abandoned and left to ruin. Although his art appears detailed, it is not the detail that interests him, but rather to create paintings that exhibit a feeling of spontaneity and life.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.richardsmithartist.co.nz

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1955)

Untitled 2011-2012
Ink and acrylic on paper
1148mm x 810mm (framed)

Mark Braunias was born in Tauranga and lives and works in Kawhia and Auckland. Braunias studied at the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in Christchurch, graduating with a BFA in 1987. He was the inaugural winner of the James Wallace Art Award in 1992 and his work is held in major public, corporate and private collections in New Zealand and overseas. A well known contemporary painter, Braunias’ well crafted, irreverent and witty personal style has been showcased in public exhibitions including his 2007 installation Visual Bank in the Tauranga Art Gallery.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.markbraunias.com or follow him on Instagram @mark.braunias

Artwork purchased Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington

(b. 1977)

Wahi Tapu (Sacred Place) 2010
Oil on canvas
1050mm x 1050mm (framed)

Study for Mokoia Island 2018
Oil on board
385mm x 565mm (framed)

Duane Moyle was born in Tauranga and lived in Mount Maunganui until 1995. He gained a Bachelor of Art and Design from AUT and a MFA from Wimbledon College of Art, London.

Wahi Tapu is from a series of paintings that delve into the history and cultural significance of the geography of Tauranga, utilising traditional Maori motifs like the tukutuku ‘x’ patterns as well as using European and colonial landscape painting styles and traditions.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.duanemoyle.com or follow him on Instagram @duanemoyle

Wahi Tapu (Sacred Place) purchased from the artist

Study for Mokoia Island purchased from 2018 Treasured Art Auction, Tauranga

(b. 1966)

Eroding Paradise 2010
Acrylic on board
1205mm x 897mm

Mandy Hague, born in Whakatane, became a full-time artist in 2002. She was the winner of the Inaugural Miles Art Award: Supreme Award in 2010. In 2015 she was the Supreme winner of the Rotorua Art Awards. She has been a finalist in the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards no less than thirteen times. She has an Advanced Diploma in Art and Creativity and has tutored both Creative Art and Photography for Waiariki now Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology.

Hague creates narratives using iconic New Zealand and European symbolism to explore ideas relating to conservation based themes.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.hague-art.wixsite.com or follow her on Instagram @hague_art

Artwork purchased from Harrisons Gallery, Tauranga

(1922-2010)

Installation drawing 1980
Mixed media
380mm x 435mm (framed)

Don Peebles was born in Taneatua, near Whakatane, lived in Wellington and studied art in Sydney and London. Upon his return in 1962, he became the first artist in New Zealand to explore constructionist abstraction, and became renowned for painted relief constructions, often framed in shallow trays.

His work has been acquired by both public and private collections in New Zealand and internationally. He was recognised as one of New Zealand's most important abstract artists. Peebles was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1999 for his services to New Zealand art, was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Literature by the University of Canterbury in 2003 and received an Arts Foundation Icon Award in 2007.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.thearts.co.nz

Artwork purchased from Dunbar Sloane Ltd, Wellington

(b. 1971)

To Dos 2011
Oil on canvas
770mm x 1040mm

Don Overbeay was born in Columbus, Ohio. He attained a B.F.A. in painting and drawing from Ohio State University and a M.F.A. in painting at the University of Alabama. He moved to Rotorua with his family in 2008 and was the Coordinator of the Creative Arts at Waiariki Institute of Technology.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.overbeay.com

Artwork purchased from Red Spot Gallery, Rotorua

(b. 1984)

Pukeko chicks 2011
Lost wax bronze casting, Artist Proof Set #1
170mm x 220mm

Matthew Brauchli is a sculptor, based in Te Puna. His passion is capturing form, action, and detail in his wildlife subjects, presenting them as a three dimensional “snapshot” frozen in time and space, allowing a glimpse into a brief moment. He works primarily in Cast Bronze and Glass, using the Lost Wax Casting process.

You can learn more about this artist at www.wildbronze.com

Artworks purchased from Harrisons Gallery, Tauranga

(b. 1919-1998)

Slipway (2) 1965
PVA
630mm x 820mm (framed)

Church on the Hill
Acrylic
470mm x 615mm (framed)

Born in Hastings, Arthur Dagley lived in Tauranga almost his whole life. He began exhibiting regularly at the Tauranga Art Gallery in Elizabeth Street from 1966 and was a finalist in the 1968 Benson and Hedges Art Award and became a full time artist in the same year. He continued painting and exhibiting right up until his passing on 1st August 1998.

Warwick Brown wrote: “More than once when his work has been critically reviewed, Dagley has been called the most underrated painter in New Zealand. Some of the reasons for this may be his lifetime residence in Tauranga, a city with no art gallery, his infrequent exhibitions in the main centres; the fact that he is largely self-taught, and his prolific output of minor as well as serious works.”

Artworks purchased from a private collector

(b. 1979)

The Glance 2007
Oil on canvas
535mm x 430mm (framed)

Luke Hollis is a self-taught artist who started his painting career in the Bay of Plenty and currently lives in Auckland. He was awarded runner up in the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards in 2004, followed by first equal winner and the Peoples Choice Award winner in 2005.

Hollis has a passion for capturing the real and fantasy alike; his pieces mix contemporary with the traditional whilst attaining realism through loose and painterly brushwork.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.lukehollisart.com

Artwork purchased from the artist

(b. 1946)

Braveheart 2011
Etching, Artists Proof #3/5 print
565mm x 455mm (framed)

Dame Robin White, born in Te Puke, Ngati Awa, was one of the most prominent painters during the 1970s; she was known to be one of a group of New Zealand regionalists characterised as the hard-edged realists. Robin subsequently lived in Kiribati for 17 years before returning to New Zealand in 1999. Currently residing in Masterton, Robin continues to work with weavers and artists from around the Pacific. Robin White received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2017.

Braveheart is an etching from the suite “Voyage to the Kermadecs” created by nine artists who joined a May 2011 expedition to the Kermadec region of New Zealand.

You can learn more about this artist at: www.thearts.co.nz

Artwork purchased from Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington

Bowl, The Volcanic Series 2017
Hand blown glass
120mm x 200mm

Ron van der Vlugt developed his art first at California Art Glass, US then the Wanganui Glass Blowing School, and the Toyama Institute of Glass Art in Japan where he was exposed to Japanese aesthetics and the sophisticated techniques of the Italian masters. His Rotorua glass blowing workshop, de Flute Gallery operated from 1999 until his retirement in 2017.

The volcanic series of work was inspired by the volcanic, thermal environment of the central plateau in New Zealand. The natural colours and textures of the work mimic the colour and texture that can be seen in the raw state, formed entirely by nature in the thermal park of the central North Island.

Artwork purchased from de Flute Glass Studio and Gallery, Rotorua

(1913-1992)

Untitled 1974
Oil on canvas
690mm x 590mm (framed)

Venetta Miles was one of the first patrons of the Tauranga Art Gallery and the biennial Miles Art Award was established in her name in 2010. She lived in Bethlehem for over fifty years and was an original member of the Tauranga Sketch Club. She bequeathed over $1million to the Tauranga Art Gallery Trust in 1985 and left most of her estate to the Tauranga Art Gallery.

Artwork purchased from private collector

(b. )

Kete Couture 2020
Harakeke
670mm h x 420mm w x 200mm d

Artist designer and weaver Shona Tāwhiao (Ngai Te Rangi, Whakatōhea, Te Whanau Āpanui) has exhibited her distinct style of raranga woven work for 25 years. Having trained in traditional and contemporary Māori raranga weaving techniques and methods, by Kahutoi Te Kanawa. Tāwhiao’s talent has been described as exquisite and undeniably unique.

The fusing of her love of fashion with her specialised techniques in weaving has enabled Tāwhiao to create Haute Couture from flax fibre known to Māori as harakeke. This has resulted in her unique style being dubbed “Harakeke Couture”. Tāwhiao’s multi award-winning collections of Harakeke Couture have been presented in New Zealand, London, Malaysia, Fiji, Hong Kong and Melbourne Fashion Weeks since 2010.

Tāwhiao has showcased her works internationally at the MaMo Arts Festival in Honolulu, Chapel St Roch in Paris and in London at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich to an international group of museum curators. In 2016 Tāwhiao was invited by Dr Maia Nuku to participate in a three week residency at the Oceanic Department of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Here she was able to study weaving from around the globe in the museums store rooms and share her style.

Tāwhiao leant her creative influence to films such as the Māori Merchant of Venice, River Queen and Deadlands. In 2012 she designed costumes for ‘The Māori Troilus and Cressida’ that opened Shakespeare’s Olympics at The Globe Theatre in London to rave reviews. This led to her being nominated and winning the Brancott Estate ‘Best Costume Designer of the Year’ at The Chapman Tripp Theatre awards in Wellington New Zealand.

Tāwhiao is focusing on the Tāwhiao7 Brand of ready to wear and accessories opening an online store soon. Based at home in Mauao The Bay of Plenty Tāwhiao continue’s to create woven Avant-Garde and Harakeke Couture.