This is River the dragon, Iris the Koala and Pebble the leaf sprite. I made this during the devastating bushfires in Australia in 2020. The painting sold in June and its proceeds went to the NZ WWF.
I love dandelions because quite apart from looking like tiny, ethereal planets, they seem to me to perfectly evoke feelings of both uncertainty and hope. You might find yourself, like a dandelion seed, flung suddenly in to an unfamiliar world and doing your best to trust that the fickle wind that carries you knows exactly where to deposit you. Or...the sight of a dandelion might reawaken the childlike possibility within you that there is value in making wishes, whether for yourself, other beings, or the entire earth.
When a whale pokes its head out of the water to see what’s going on above the surface it’s called a ‘spy hop’, which is where the name of this painting came from. The galactic space deer on the top left is a deity of the earth, sea and sky, who can transform in to absolutely anything. She can be a cloud, or a waterfall, or a rock. She might even have been that startlingly bright red leaf that you saw falling from a tree!
The whale peeking up from the lower part of the painting is a gray whale. In the days of widespread whaling, gray whales were named 'devil-fish' for their efforts to resist whalers. They were particularly ferocious when their young had been taken. Nowadays, these beautiful animals are known to actively approach boats, even bringing their curious calves with them.
In this picture, I was imagining the Moon dipping into the salty underwater world of the ocean for the first time, becoming a resident of both sea and sky.
A blue whale is in the company of a little Hector's dolphin. Hector's dolphins, which are among the smallest types of cetaceans in the world, are found in the waters surrounding New Zealand's South Island, Te Wai Pounamu, and have a distinctive rounded dorsal fin.
This painting grew from a drawing I did for inktober in 2019, which was of a huge, bear-like, star-catching creature called Sulamith. The creature pictured is an ancient sky spirit, so old that she can no longer rely on her wings for flight. For centuries now she has navigated the cosmos in a boat, with the aid of an owl who can see through time and space without even opening his eyes. The job of this winged bear is to gather falling meteors and transform their energies into new forms, that benefit multiple universes.
In this painting, I was imagining these beings passing over Mount Ruapehu on a clear night.
I love orcas for too many reasons to name, so it was only a matter of time before I put one in a painting. The one pictured here is an enormous guardian of the ocean, easily distinguishable from other orcas by its sheer size, and by the never-fail giveaway of the lights emanating from behind its dorsal fin. Rather than being a source of fear for other ocean dwellers, this creature is a living library of millions of years of life at sea. It knows everything, including how many different types of fish there are, what sharks like to talk about to each other, and who composed the greatest humpback whale song of all time.
The beautiful Kōtare is one of my favourite birds. The first time I saw one, I was pretty startled by the amazing, vivid colours of its feathers. This Kōtare is contemplating life during peaceful night.