These paintings tell a story of changing land use. They return to a past theme in New Zealand painting, the loss of the native forest, but from the perspective of renewal and regeneration.
Whereas painters of the past used the dead tree as a symbol of everything that had been lost, I have painted young trees to represent hope and renewal, and forest remnant trees as sentinels and survivors.
The first four paintings in this series are inspired by my time as an artist in residence at Barry Brickell’s Driving Creek, a Pottery and regenerating kauri forest in the Coromandel. Many of the trees at Driving Creek have ‘eyes’ on them; scars from fallen branches. The trees appear to be watching the human efforts with hope.
Following the residency, I went searching for a Wairarapa eco-restoration project. I found Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation, a wetland and riparian forest restoration project on a family-owned farm on the banks of the Ruamāhanga River in the South Wairarapa. There began a collaboration with members of the Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation involving conversations with family members, community planting and working alongside children from Te Kura O Paetūmokai (Featherston School) to create collaborative artworks that responded to the restoration work.

The titles of these paintings have been constructed to tell the story of this journey:

In the young forest
I felt watched
The visionary
Looking sideways
Closer to home
I found a river
In a state of restoration
Meandering
Diverted
Crossed.
I found sentinels
Carrying the memories
Dreaming
On a time to come.