𝖆𝖗𝖘 𝖑𝖔𝖓𝖌𝖆, 𝖛𝖎𝖙𝖆 𝖇𝖗𝖊

Eel acrylic painting, infused with river water, on found timber that won the Judge's Award for the Estuary Art and Ecology Award 2025.

Artist statement: Tāmaki river is an important, but polluted, river in Aotearoa New Zealand with dwindling eel numbers reflecting a dire situation. Longfin eel (Anguilla dieffenbachii) is at risk of extinction. Like eels, we’re chained to water for survival. 

Chained to Tāmaki explores and captures the eel’s importance and their environment. A diseased eel suspended in darkness is painted with river water on a plank. The wood represents a likely item found around rivers; chains are adorned with patterns inspired by Māori art and water ripples on glossy surfaces comparable to eels. Chains illustrate the polluting metals and metaphorical ‘chain’ to nature. 

Flowers, drawn digitally using Procreate / 2025

A battle of dog-like creatures, digital work using procreate based on an original pen on paper drawing.

When Earth Feels Too Much, 520mm x 380mm x 80mm (variable), Acrylic paint, charcoal pigment, and HMA glue on 280gsm canvas.

Being on Earth sometimes feels too much to bear, and at the same time the Earth seems to be ‘feeling’ too much in that it is suffering through human causes.

The work depicts grief as a visceral, uncontainable, outward spillage of emotion; expressing unrest or seeking to escape itself. A combination of plastic and natural materials was specifically chosen to speak to climate collapse recalling unstable ecologies, oil spills, or the inevitabilities of destruction. The work has the ability to represent double meanings, as seen in its title, the chaotic shapes can also be seen as a depiction of the cerebral webs inside the brain. I aim to personify the Earth's emotions and my own climate grief through the colour black. Being on Earth sometimes feels too much to bear, and at the same time the Earth seems to be ‘feeling’ too much in that it is suffering through human causes. Like the mind, both natural and destructive, the chaos of grief cannot be contained within the restraints of a canvas. 

This work was selected as a finalist for a national art award in February.