Wendy Leach is an artist based in Mangawhai Heads, Northland, Aotearoa NZ.

In this chat we unpack her long successful artistic career, from making domestic inspired still life works as a young mother to painting European and New Zealand landscapes, painting abstracts, working with oil pastels and gouache, exploring photography and working with light.

Wendy talks about her time studying at Elam School of Fine Art at age 18 and why she chose to return to study years later, this time at Whitecliffe College in Auckland, to complete her MFA. We explore the work created in her 2 year MFA course, her Surrogate Self Portrait series and her Light Painting series, and what she gained from this and learnt about herself as an artist and as a person.

We discuss the experiences and environments in her life that have influenced her work including a funded trip by a collector to make work and exhibit in Jordan, living in Belgium for 5 years, travelling extensively throughout Europe and the Mangawhai coastline.

Wendy talks about why she is no longer interested in being represented by a gallery, her connections with the community Mangawhai Artists' gallery, how she sells her work, her attitude to moments of creative block, what she looks for in a landscape and her oil painting process.

https://www.wendyleach.com/

https://www.instagram.com/wendyleach_art/

https://www.facebook.com/WendyLeachArt/

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Creative Connections Website

See our website for more about us and artist blogposts with images + links of the things we talk about in each episode.

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Maico Camilo has been a professional contemporary artist for nearly two decades and has made a significant impact on the art scene. His abstracted figurative and abstract paintings are unashamedly neon bright, bold, textured, energetic and unique.

Born in Southern Brazil, Maico Camilo first arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2005 and has since lived, travelled and shown his work throughout Europe, Asia, The United States and Oceania. His experiences across different cultures have informed an artistic practice centred around people, connection, perspective and the way we interpret the world around us.

You're going to love this episode. Maico talks very honestly about: relationships with galleries; the ups and downs of selling work internationally; marketing and selling his work independently; his views of the art gallery business model and his approach to exhibiting his work.

He shares his thoughts on how he is influenced by his Brazilian culture, the art scene and working as an artist in New Zealand, how he thinks of his art practice as a global business and the intricacies of pricing his work. We explore some of the works that are going to be in his upcoming solo show Unapologetically Dazzling at Turua Gallery, from October 16th - 28th. And of course, so much more!

Thank you for listening to Creative Connections. Here is Maico Camilo.

Unapologetically Dazzling, opens 16 October at TURUA GALLERY in Auckland, featuring 20–25 vibrant, heavily textured works bursting with neon colour, pattern and energy. Opening night is October 16th from 5pm and the show closes October 28th.

https://turuagallery.co.nz/collections/unapologetically-dazzling

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Creative Connections Website

See our website for more about us and artist blogposts with images + links of the things we talk about in each episode.

CREATIVE CONNECTIONS Instagram

Andrea Robinson is a painter from Wellington Aotearoa NZ. Her paintings celebrate nature and are made with the intention to touch people's hearts and shine a light on conservation and environmental protection.

From stylised realism to illustration, Andrea explores many styles and approaches within 3 series: florals; landscapes and native birds with a particular focus on kiwi.

In this episode Andrea shares her personal challenges with health issues and periods of chronic pain and how she manages this around her art practice and her love of being in nature. She shares the messages and narratives behind her paintings, the things that are important to her, how she manages her 3 series of work, what she loves so much about kiwis and the volunteer work she does with them, and she unpacks her painting process.

I think you'll find Andrea very inspiring in the way she deals with the challenges in her life, her attitude to the world and her positive mindset.

https://www.andrearobinson.co.nz/

https://www.instagram.com/andrearobinsonartistnz/

Support the show

Creative Connections Website

See our website for more about us and artist blogposts with images + links of the things we talk about in each episode.

CREATIVE CONNECTIONS Instagram