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Kina NZ Design + Artspace is pleased to host the return of Muriwai based artist Tanya Blong, with her exhibition Áqua Doce – Sweet Waters. Since her hugely popular exhibition with Kina NZ Design + Art Space in 2017, Blong’s work has continued to rise in popularity with sell-out exhibitions in New Zealand and a strong Australasian following. Born in Australia and bred on the shores of Taranaki, Blong studied at Hungry Creek Art and Craft School, graduating in 2006. Her work ranges across 2D and 3D mediums, and she has exhibited in New Zealand and Australia. Her work is held in international, private and public collections. Blong’s show Áqua Doce – Sweet Waters is an ongoing painted series known as “The Bathers”. It is suggestive of a mottled memory of time and place. It evokes hot heady summers and the intoxication of the tropical fragrant flowers and humid vegetation. The broody narrative hosts a suite of dark females, cloistered at waters edge, idyllic and inviting yet it holds an undercurrent, a tension perhaps? It’s that familiar place, but with further mining presents itself as much more. It is not just the elusive bygone era that Blong is addressing but the celebration of painting, the laying down of colour upon colour, the marriage of light and dark. It is this juxtaposition of colour that conveys emotion and eludes the viewer to a sense of inclusion or perhaps exclusion. The series developed after Blong spent five years living in Western Australia. The culmination of modern Australian art, the light and colour reflected in the landscape and the return home, developed the notion of place, specifically of the land owning us, as place being of kinship quality.

Ali Davies is a textile artist living in the beautiful West Auckland of New Zealand. She has been designing textile patterns and hand printing fabrics for more than 20 years. The Fabric Queen is her brand of table linens and home ware using a hemp and organic cotton base cloth which fits her ethos of having fabrics that are sustainable and as close as possible to the original source. Her customers love the uniqueness and natural feel of the fabric as well as being something that celebrates family and the place where we live. Ali is also the creator of 'Patterns of New Zealand' a brand of locally hand printed tea towels sold through gift stores across the country. Celebrating New Zealand's flora and fauna.

For many years Ali Shannon has combined jewellery making with working as a ski instructor/ coach - an unusual combination of careers, which has allowed her to travel and to live in both North America and in New Zealand. From 2001 to 2004 she lived and worked in a co-operative art centre in Ashland, Oregon. She now works from her home studio on the southern shores of Lake Taupo. Her work is featured and sold in various galleries in New Zealand and the USA. Ali started making jewellery in the 1980s. Her work has evolved from brightly painted wood earrings and brooches to her current pieces made primarily from sterling silver and rolled gold. She also incorporates copper and brass, paua and pink mussel shell, pounamu, pearls and a variety of semiprecious stones in her work. All her pieces are individually handcrafted. No two are exactly alike.

Angie has been painting professionally since 2002.  Originally from UK, she has made New Zealand her home since 1998. Angie has experimented in different styles and forms of art - from nudes, to abstracts, to still-life. But considering her background in Environmental Science, it is not a surprise that Angie found her passion in New Zealand nature and wildlife, preserving the indigenous flora and fauna throughout her artwork. With nature providing the foundation of her art, Angie now incorporates Kiwi life into her paintings and limited editions prints… although nostalgia has crept into her more recent artworks. Her art has been described as vibrant, contemporary and bold. Angie is continually inspired by what New Zealand has to offer, and is constantly pushing her boundaries in the way she sees life in her new found home, which perhaps explains her passion for preserving native flora and flora – the focus for many of her paintings.   Angie’s contemporary artworks  have complemented and enriched the interiors of many homes and businesses here in New Zealand and abroad.

Anna has a Diploma in Textile Design and sells her weaving throughout New Zealand.  Her work and family life was featured in the ‘Life in Balance’ episode of Country Calender 2012.  Anna enjoys working with a combination of natural materials, flax, feather and metal.  She loves the process of making things.  Her work is strongly inspired by traditional maori artwork, though she likes to give them a very contemporary feel and present them as a precious treasure or taonga. 

New Plymouth based artist, Anneke Moore, will exhibit her latest collection of “Light Works” pieces for the first time at KINA NZ Design + Artspace in New Plymouth with her exhibition titled, MERAKI. 
 MERAKI - Is the soul, creativity, or love put into something; the essence of yourself that is put into your work. This exhibition features a selection of light works on old and new x-ray boxes. The collection of works is based on and influenced by a medical journey that has been watched as a parent. These pieces are an expression of emotion and the processing of events that are out of our hands. In life watching can be hard, frustrating, painful, scary, and heart wrenching, but equally it can be beautiful, inspiring and incredibly humbling. Anatomical hearts, brains and sign language are used to tell a story of appreciation, these thought provoking pieces Anneke hopes people can not only enjoy but perhaps in their own way connect with. These works are all about how we process these emotions... because some times words just aren’t enough. Anneke and the team at Kina welcome all to attend the opening. Opening Friday 6th July 5pm.

Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Annie Sandano has since lived in New Zealand, Italy and the USA and has completed a large portion of the study towards her BFA degree abroad. Having completed her Fine Arts education at Elam School of Fine Arts with Honours and the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design in the USA, Sandano has had successful exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. She merges cultural factors from Brazil and New Zealand; assembling, collating and hybridising to reconfigure our traditional visual vocabulary. Sandano’s prints create a narrative of contemporary folklore with references to modern illustration, traditional Japanese woodcut prints and the respective histories of decorative and fine arts in Brazil and New Zealand. As well as printmaking, Annie works across a variety of fine art mediums, adamant about upholding traditional fine art practices within a contemporary context. Following her very popular and highly coveted collection of hand carved and hand printed limited edition wood cut prints, 2016 has seen Sandano develop her practice into the area of painting with the exhibition of a series of abstract acrylic paintings which have also been very well received and are now finding a place in major collections. Sandano’s works have been acquired by The Wallace Arts Trust, The Hilton Group and the Deloitte Art Collection to date. Other recent achievements include having two pieces were selected as finalists for the Waikato Society of Arts Waikato Youth Art Awards, and having a piece featured in Prince William and Catherine Duchess of Cambride’s private collection. Sandano also featured in Denis Robinson’s publication, New Zealand Gallery. Highly collectable and with a strong following, Sandano is fast becoming recognised as a significant contributor to contemporary printmaking and Fine Art practice in New Zealand.

Anoint skincare is an artisan skincare company based in the far North of New Zealand. They have two core ranges, a Baby range and a Body range.Their founding belief is that nature knows best.  They use all natural, skin nourishing ingredients to hand craft the Anoint range and are passionate about Essential Oils and their therapeutic properties.The unique, eclectic packaging is either upcycled, recycled, reusable or recyclable. Anoint incorporates damaged books, sheet music, maps, used stamps and recycled fabric into the presentation of the Anoint range. Where ever possible they use glass, ceramic, tin or cardboard to package our products.

Anya Mowll is a fulltime artist based in New Zealand. She graduated with a Diploma in Ceramic Arts in 2012 and then completed a Bachelor in Applied Arts at Whitireia Polytechnic. Anya works from home in her studio mostly with clay but enjoys experimenting with new media. She enjoys exploring the texture of fired ceramics from very smooth to as sharp as a knife as well as preserving fingerprints in the finished pieces. She is also experimenting with fluid glazes in her series of Secret Lake and Sea Form bowls. Anya finds her inspiration in nature, particularly in features like growth, weathering, evolution and organic structures and is always on the lookout for new ideas. You can usually find her working on three or four projects simultaneously.

Vaughan Otto was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He met his wife, a New Zealander, while travelling around Europe. They finally settled in Auckland to raise their family.They spend their holidays on the beautiful Coromandel peninsula at Matarangi Beach where he gets his inspiration for copper art pieces. He remembers his parents having his baby shoes plated in copper and this was the catalyst which inspired all things copper. His favourite pastime is travelling around the NZ coastline to find what treasures have washed up on the beaches and this is what influences his art pieces.

This series from Barry presents a variety of isolated islands, surveying a range of wild and domestic habitations. In each painting the oceans differ - the sky, the environment, the inhabitants, the time of day - all vary. They are a string of islands in flux; connected by change, demand and the relentless course of history and culture. The artworks can be viewed as theatrical tableau, reflective spaces which highlight mankind’s complex relationship with the land, its beast and the all encompassing ocean.

Borrowed Earth creates high quality ceramic art to be used everyday and appreciated for generations to come. Their work proudly reflects New Zealand's unique identity and honours Maori, Pacific Island and English family histories. They are constantly innovating and discovering creative new ways to express the inherent beauty of Aotearoa, New Zealand, drawing inspiration from the land, its people and our heritage.  Distinctly original, this range of ceramics celebrate the uniqueness only individually hand made pieces offer. Borrowed Earth chooses environmentally friendly production processes.  They are motivated to keep our environment clean and healthy, protecting the very Earth we Borrow from. Manaaki Whenua Manaaki Tangata Harere Whakamua. Care for the land Care for the people go forward.

Arguably New Zealand’s pre-eminent urban pop artist, Brad Novak (aka New Blood Pop) has work sitting sharply at the nexus between fine art and street art. Novak became the first artist in New Zealand’s history to exhibit with global superstars such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Mr. Brainwash, OBEY and BANKSY in the same show (Toronto, 2015). His debut solo show (New Blood Pop: An Urban Art Experience) also likely set a NZ attendance record, with several hundred people through the event in only 2 hours.Novak’s one-of-a-kind, hand-paper-collage & stencil-spray-painted works on wood (and limited edition screen-prints on paper) involve the layering of popular imagery. Fundamentally, both his work and practice are about keeping our inner child alive.He is currently showing internationally through galleries in the USA, Canada, the UK and New Zealand.

I delight in making jewellery with materials like silver, stone, gold, and steel and I'm fairly low-tech about it, meaning I use ancient ways with contemporary tricks. I use hand technology and make helpful tools from old car parts and railway sleepers. Maybe there's a sustainability sticker I could go for. Also I teach jewellery in our studio (which I call "Bush Jewellery") to encourage kids and professionals alike to be creative in metals and use lateral thinking with their ideas. To sum up, I try to make pleasing shapes into wearable and durable jewellery.

Throughout my life I have explored all kinds of creative outlets, and found that I can encompass all the elements I enjoy from working in other mediums into my jewellery. The colour and expressiveness of painting, the absorbing detail of drawing and in sculpture the tactile experience of modelling with the endless possibilities of materials. My inspiration is drawn from traditional forms but I like to up the ante with combinations of materials, playful colours, and scale.