Taupo exhibition - 40 + years in the making

Tomorrow at 5.30 my latest exhibition opens at Red Rock gallery in Taupo. For the last 5 months I've lived in Taupo. I set up a studio in November and started to try and capture my thoughts, stories and feelings about this beautiful part of the world. I've had a holiday home in Taupo for 24 years and before that had stopped off here on our annual trips to Auckland as a child, and then on the way to our Christmas holiday's in Wangamata. I love this place and always have, from the first time I viewed the lake through the car window as we wound our way around the lake edge leading into town. Years later we used to play a game called 'first to see the lake.' The idea (as you rightly guessed) was to be the first in the car to see the lake.

There could only be one winnerbut the disappointment of not spotting the lake first was soon replaced by seeing the lake closer up and knowing we were almost there. That joy of arriving still remains with me today. The paintings are not of scenes, but of images placed together to form a picture of how I see this place. There are moments in time, from this summer and from summers a long time ago. I know I would not have been able to produce these paintings, if I hadn't made the decision to paint them here.