He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata he tangata.

What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people it  is people.        (Maori proverb)

Every good artist should have an obsession. Mine is people. Portraiture is my first love, reveling in the challenge of capturing the personality of a subject, and witnessing the viewers’ emotive reaction to it as well. I am inspired by the diverse beauty within humanity and aim to celebrate it. Our stories are written on our faces; the more wrinkles the better! Perhaps it is my gypsy ancestry that makes me so drawn to captivating characters, beads, dreads, ethnic fabric and texture, all expressed with a luxuriously warm oil colour palette. I have a healthy relationship with oil paints, their buttery consistency is a joy to handle and I am largely inspired by the old masters techniques.

The symbol of the Compass within my close-up landscape and figurative works, questions the viewer's own point of reference in their lives; are they forging their own path, following something or are they lost? For me it has long symbolised karaiti (Christ), as he shows us the 'Way'; our true north. It is also significant as it links with my Tahitian heritage, having navigation of the seas at the core of Tahitian culture. Tahitian motifs are used subtly in these works, along with attention to interesting negative spaces and organic pattern within nature.