Figurative Artists Exhibition: BETWEEN US
May 16 @ 10:00 am – June 27 @ 4:00 pm
DEPOT Artspace
28 Clarence St, Devonport
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 16 May, 2 – 4pm
Artist Panel Talk: 3pm
DEPOT Artspace presents BETWEEN US, a collective exhibition featuring 28 contemporary artists working across figurative art and portraiture. Guest co-curated by Karlalise Hortsmans and Tracey Coakley, the exhibition brings together a diverse range of practices that reflect the richness of identity and lived experience in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Through an expansive selection of works, BETWEEN US highlights the plurality of voices shaping contemporary figurative art, offering audiences an opportunity to engage with personal narratives, shared histories, and the complexities of human connection.
The exhibition seeks to expand audience appreciation for figurative art and portraiture, fostering greater expression and deeper connection within our communities.
Artwork: Logan Moffat, Fractured, 2025, oil on canvas, 1215mm x 1520mm
Alice Fennessy
Amanda Billing
Belinda Griffiths
Bernadette Ballantyne
Clark Roworth
Hajnalka Mayor
Hannah Schickedanz
Hayley Hamilton
Jamie Chapman
Jane Duncan
Jenni Stringleman
Artists involved in Figurative Artists Exhibition: BETWEEN US include:
Alice Fennessy
Alice Fennessy is an artist from Te Papaioea, Aotearoa. She uses drawing and painting to convey themes such as memory, domestic life and interior worlds. Her work is currently intertwined with motherhood as she raises her two young children.
She finds herself endlessly fascinated by the juxtapositions or dualities thrown up by pregnancy and motherhood, how these experiences can be simultaneously beautiful and ugly, ordinary and other, tender and excruciating. Her work explores these spaces through materials and compositions; disparate images from fleeting moments drawn together in stark tones on surfaces such as paper, silk or aluminium. Her work aims to be sensitive and vulnerable, casting light on experiences of life often disregarded.
Alice studied a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours at Massey University CoCA, and also works as a secondary school art teacher while parenting her two children.
@alicefennessy
Alice Fennessy
Amanda Billing
“I’m driven by a need for artistic adventure and a determination to grow. To that end, almost any art form will do as long as it puts me in unfamiliar, tricky territory. My latest expedition is into the world of hand-built ceramics but it’s painting that I always come home to. It demands my commitment and my sincerity. Painting – particularly of the female figure – holds both safety and fascination for me. I return to it to remember who I am yet it always has questions for me. Questions about womanhood, individuality, existence.”
Amanda Billing is a multi-disciplinary artist working across fields of painting, photography, and performance. She has been acting in theatre and on screen since 2003, drawing and painting since 2010, and working with portrait photography since 2016.
@_amandabilling_
Amanda Billing – Actor, Photographer and Artist
Belinda Griffiths
Working within the disciplines of painting and printmaking, Belinda’s art explores the expressive power of the gestural mark. When coupled with depictions of the human form, this push and pull between mark and form seeks to connect us with a deeper understanding of the human experience.
Belinda Griffiths is a conceptual figurative artist based in Auckland. Belinda was awarded the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award in 2010, the Estuary Art and Ecology Award in 2013 and a merit award at the Parkin Drawing Prize in 2021. Her work is held in public and private collections, both in New Zealand and overseas.
@belindagriffithsart
Belinda Griffiths
Bernadette Ballantyne
Bernadette Ballantyne is a New Zealand artist working primarily in soft pastel, a medium she is drawn to for its immediacy, subtlety, and ability to capture light and atmosphere. Her practice centres on portraiture and figurative work that seeks to hold a moment in time, images that suggest narrative, evoke memory, and reflect the quiet nuances of everyday life in Aotearoa.
Raised in a small town in Taranaki within a creative family, Ballantyne developed an early connection to both art and the natural world. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in the early 2000s and was named New Zealand Emerging Artist of the Year in 2005. More recently, her work Resting Mum Face was awarded the Supreme Award at the Tasman Art Awards, further recognising her ability to distil the subtle complexities of contemporary life into a single, resonant image. While her practice also includes floral subjects, exploring texture, depth, and the understated beauty of familiar forms, it is through portraiture that her interest in storytelling is most deeply realised. Her works often capture fleeting, intimate moments, inviting the viewer to consider what lies just beyond the frame.
In 2022, Ballantyne transitioned to full-time practice, following several years of building a commission-based career. Alongside her studio work, she continues to share her knowledge of soft pastel through teaching, supporting others to develop confidence and technical skill in the medium.
@bbartist_nz
https://bbart.co.nz/
Clark Roworth
“In my artistic pursuit, breathing vitality into an oil painted image is what I aim to accomplish. Taking the still image and collaging the subject to evoke motion and emotion is something I take great pride in doing. I prefer to study the quiet and contemplative moments in everyday life and use my knowledge of traditional painting to inject power behind it. I find profound beauty in disrupting the static nature of canvas, introducing an element of chaos that mirrors the transience of fleeting moments in time. Through this deliberate disruption I invite the viewer to interpret and unravel the layers of meaning nestled within. Painting in a realistic style allows me to convey my unique perspective on the tangible world. Through the interplay of colour, shadow and form I strive to capture the essence of reality while transcending its constraints. “
Clark is an oil painter and mural artist based in Wellington, NZ. Clark was a finalist in the Adam portrait award in 2022 and third place winner in 2024, a finalist in the Molly Morpeth Canaday award in 2024 and in the Academy art prize 2025. He is concerned with figurative subject matter and portraiture. Since living in Wellington, Clark has embarked on a journey of learning, honing his craft through a diverse array of teachers. Constantly pushing himself to try new areas of art, Clark loves to experiment and try notoriously difficult subject matter. In his work he wants to portray an honest and striking image to elicit emotion and a sense of imaginative, disrupted realism.
@clarkroworth
Clarkr.art
Hajnalka Mayor
Hajnalka creates highly detailed, one-of-a-kind mixed media figurative sculptures that blend fantasy, storytelling, and realism. Each piece is an intimate reflection of resilience and imagination, shaped by the depth of lived experience. Her main sculpting mediums are polymer clay and Japanese stone clay. Recently, she rediscovered her love for drawing and painting.
Hajnalka Mayor is a Hungarian-born New Zealand artist based in Wellington. She has a background in various fields. Pottery, makeup artistry, graphic design, film industry. Since 2015 she has been creating small mixed media sculptures in the style of realism. Her work earned her several international awards and has been published all over the world. In recent years, she started to collaborate with galleries and participate in group shows.
@hajnalkamayor
@hajnalkasfantasyart
Hajnalka’s Fantasy Art – one of a kind polymer clay sculptures
Hannah Schickedanz
“My work explores connection and belonging to the body, to place, and to inherited histories. Through contemplative figurative paintings and gathered & woven natural materials, I consider what it means to be both human and animal, and how we might come to belong to the land in a more embodied way. As a descendant of settlers, I’m interested in belonging as something practiced rather than assumed, shaped by care, curiosity, and responsibility. My work uses the act of attention to explore belonging as something we practice, rather than something we are given. “
Hannah Schickedanz is a Wellington-based artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, and fibre work. Her work combines elements of mythical realism with close observation, exploring themes of belonging, ancestry, and connection to the natural world. Raised on a farm in North Canterbury, her work is informed by both distance from and longing for that landscape. She exhibits across Aotearoa and continues to develop her practice as a way of working through larger questions of belonging.
@hannahschickedanz_artist
Hannah Schickedanz Wellington Artist
Hayley Hamilton
Hayley considers herself a painter and an illustrator who enjoys telling visual stories through her art. Curiosity and variation have always been an essential part of her creative journey. The ideas are constant , like a chatter in her head that she needs to pair back. Inspiration comes from life experiences, relationships and being consciously child like, recording interactions that will later be scribbled into her sketchbook. Dellving into other worlds through books, films and conversations, ideas emerge that she then works on to become a painting.
Hayley Hamilton attended Central St Martins School Of Art in London. She immigrated to New Zealand in 1993 and has been a full time artist since 2001. Her career to date has involved running an open studio workshop, using clay, painting and a little commercial illustration. She is now painting full time. Her practice involves original paintings from which she produces a range of limited edition prints, exhibition ceramic work and a merchandise range of tees and greetings cards.
@hayleyhamilton_create
Hayley Hamilton | Raglan
Jamie Chapman
Jamie Chapman’s practice plays with image; exploring how painting could engage with photographic structures, constraints and modes of depiction. Throughout the painting process there is a constant conflict between paint and image; the push and pull of the surface, materiality and the illusion of depth.
Jamie was born in the United Kingdom. His family immigrated to New Zealand when he was 2 years old. They settled in Whangarei. Jamie studied a Certificate of Fine Arts at Whitecliffe in 2005, his BFA(Hons) at Elam in 2011, and his MFA at Elam in 2012. He received the Joe Raynes Scholarship in 2012 and the National Youth Art Award by ArtsPost in 2013.
@jamiechapman_painting
Jamiechapman.co.nz
Jane Duncan
Jane’s professional background is signwriting and she qualified at Kangaroo Point College in 1993. Jane feels blessed to have learnt her trade in the traditional era of handwritten signs. Hence her propensity for detail. She describes herself as a self learning artist, believing we are all constantly learning and evolving both in our creativity and in our human experience.
On Jane’s return to NZ her imagination was captured by the gnarly and indomitable Southland windswept trees. Which inspired her first solo exhibition ‘Intrepid’. Jane has participated in many group exhibitions over the years and recently exhibited her ‘Shades of Feminine’ at the McKee/Suter gallery in 2021. Currently Jane’s work is inspired by the feminine archetypes and she weaves symbolism and narrative into these works. She also enjoys painting the occasional still life and floral.
Jane has been an Adam’s Portraiture Award finalist (2016) and a Tasman National Award merit recipient (2021). Full list of participated exhibitions on website.
Jane lives in the Upper Moutere, Tasman district and has recently joined the Upper Moutere Artisans.The Artisans hold a twice yearly open day culinary/arts trail, and this has become a popular and much anticipated event.
@janeduncanartist
Jenni Stringleman
My oil paintings portray an uplifting view of everyday scenes, elevating small details with which the viewer can readily identify. Relaxed figures at the beach, energetic dancers in a club, or an almost kaleidoscope glimpse from nature, my work reflects a deep connection to cubism and expressionism, with a palette uniquely influenced by life in the subtropical north of New Zealand. I strive to emphasize both the glory and mundanity of life, relishing, most importantly, women fully inhabiting their bodies with an easy confidence.
After twenty years in graphic design and animation, in 2012 I refocused on my first love of painting. I work full time from a small, light filled studio on the main street in Devonport, and have had five solo shows, and appeared in multiple group shows and publications, with works held in private collections all over the world.
I primarily focus on figurative oil paintings and multifigure scenes, as well as portraiture, with a leaning towards an expressionist, confident and textured approach.
@missjenninz
JENNI STRINGLEMAN
Jonette Murray
“Art has been my lifelong sanctuary, where I seek to create beauty as an antidote to suffering.”
Jonette is a self taught disabled artist who works primarily ‘from life’ in her Wellington studio. She is a passionate full time artist who holds frequent solo shows, participates in group shows and has been a finalist in several major art awards in NZ.
Best known for her well crafted still life paintings, she is currently returning to her passion of narrative based portrait and figurative paintings that explore themes such as feminisim, disability, and spirituality. Murray’s paintings have been exhibited in galleries throughout NZ for over 20 years and her paintings have been aquired for collections throughout NZ, Australia, England, America and France.
@jonettemurray.nzartist
Jonette Murray – Artist, Still Life Paintings, N.Z Art
Joon-Hee Park
Korean-Kiwi artist Joon-Hee Park spent many hours as a child in her late father’s studio, watching him paint and playing with his collection of oddities and art materials. Surrealism continues to shape her practice, which she approaches as a way of exploring and mapping her psyche. An introvert by nature, Park uses painting as a space of retreat—an inward world where she quietly navigates feelings of solitude and emotional distance. Drawing from a childhood shaped between two cultures, Park weaves together memories of favourite toys, fragments of dreams and lived experience.
Her dreamlike spaces become a form of escape, echoing an inner world where loneliness and imagination coexist. She is particularly drawn to the way memories blur and shift over time, like dreams that soften at the edges yet remain emotionally vivid. Amusing yet poignant, her dreamlike compositions resist fixed meaning, instead inviting viewers to form their own connections and interpretations within the layered narratives she creates.
Park holds a BFA and MFA from the Elam School of Fine Arts, majoring in Painting (Hons), 2003. She has exhibited regularly at OREXART since her graduation and has participated in numerous group exhibitions and award finalist shows in New Zealand, Australia, and the USA. She was awarded the Michael Evans Award in 2015, Highly Commended 2D Winner of Lysaght Watt Art Awards in 2018, and the Walker and Hall Premier Award in 2021.
She has also been a painting teacher at Westlake Boys High School since 2009.
@ptgfrk
Joon Hee Park AP — Orexart – New Zealand Art
Karlalise Horstmans
Karlalise’s painting practice is grounded in the phenomenology of perception and the nature of attuned observation. She increasingly works at the intersection between figuration and abstraction, exploring the embodied experience of inhabited public spaces designed to support looking. Increasingly, her works engage with the neuroaesthetic dimensions of these encounters – the ways in which the nervous system negotiates a complex perceptual field by filtering, selectively attending to and only partially resolving sensory data.
Karlalise Horstmans is based in Auckland, New Zealand. A former intellectual property lawyer, she is now pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Whitecliffe College. She paints across a wide range of scales (10cm – 4m) and sculpts in mixed media. Her works are consistently selected to appear in national and international art awards.
@karlalisehorstmansart
| Karlalise Horstmans |
Katie Blundell
Katie Blundell is a contemporary multimedia artist and teacher based in Tauranga, New Zealand. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts (2003), majoring in printmaking, and a Graduate Diploma in Secondary Teaching (2005).
Her practice explores the human experience through work that is both personal and widely relatable. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Carl Jung’s concept of the “collective unconscious,” she examines identity, emotion, and shared psychological undercurrents.
Portraiture is central to her practice. Rather than focusing on strict likeness, Blundell captures essence by layering mark-making, texture, and abstraction to evoke mood, memory, and complexity, often blurring the boundary between representation and abstraction.
Process underpins her work across media. In recent years, she has developed “relief paintings,” a distinctive fusion of printmaking and painting. These are unique carved works that emphasise texture, depth, and materiality.
Blundell has been a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards (2019), the Walker & Hall Art Awards (2021), the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards (2023), and the Adam Portraiture Award (2022, 2026).
Alongside her studio practice, she is committed to teaching and fosters creativity and confidence in her community.
@katieblundellartist
Katie Blundell Artist
Kylie King-Hazel
“My practice lives in the space of questioning. It begins as a love letter to my Māori husband and our children and moves to questioning my responsibility in creating work shaped by love, proximity and lived relationships. It sits intentionally in an uneasy place and explores the necessary and uncomfortable question of what it means to be Tangata te Tiriti in Aotearoa. Rather than finding resolution, my work is shaped by ongoing questioning and is a reflection of my responsibility as a Pākehā artist, wife and Mother. Through my paintings I explore the emotional and political weight of portraiture, where gaze, visibility, inherited histories, contemporary relationships and historical power dynamics combine. I seek to consider the ethical weight and the accountability that accompanies making work in relation to Māori – how to honour without claiming, how to witness without speaking over, how to create without reinforcing harm. “
Kylie is a self-taught portrait artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, working in oils. Over the past two years she has focused on developing her technical practice and exploring the narrative of her work. She began exhibiting in group shows in 2025 and was awarded the 2026 Craig’s Aspiring People’s Choice Award. She works from her home studio in Stokes Valley.
@kyliekinghazel
Laura Olenska
Laura Olenska is a French born painter based in Wellington, New Zealand, where she has lived and worked since 2017. She is a self taught artist with a background in art history and cinematography in Paris.
Working primarily in oil on canvas from her studio in Wellington, Olenska builds her paintings through layered classical techniques, while developing contemporary psychological narratives. Rooted in existential concerns, her work examines what it means to inhabit a vulnerable, desiring and often contradictory human condition.
@auraolenska
Laura Olenska
Laura Worrall
“My work is primarily shaped by the restorative feeling that grounding my bare feet on the earth or walking under the canopy of the trees gives me. As my work has evolved I noticed the strong repetitive narrative in my paintings was simply a message to myself, a reminder to step outside when life is in a season of chaos, even for a moment to help reset and bring back balance. I am consistently exploring ways to capture the raw beauty of the world around us and the profound effect it has on our nervous system. My work makes space for that exhale, it offers a contrast to the online world we’re constantly pulled into, and a return to something grounding and real. “
Laura Worrall is a Northland-based figurative artist working across multiple mediums and has been exhibiting regularly since 2018. In 2020 and 2024, she presented duo exhibitions with her partner, ceramicist Mike Hooton, showcasing not only their individual works but also a collection of their collaborative ceramic pieces.
In 2024, she became a founding member of the Kaipara Centre for the Arts Trust, reflecting her strong commitment to supporting and strengthening the arts in rural Kaipara communities.
A co-founder of MGTO Gallery (est. April 2025), Laura exhibits throughout the year, in 6 to 8 week blocks as part of the artists collective exhibition programme.
@lauraworrallart
Laura Worrall – mgtogallery
Logan Moffat
Logan Moffat is a portrait painter and the 2018 winner of the Adam Portraiture Award. He graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a BFA (Honours) in 2018. Since Year 12, his practice has centred on portraiture, beginning with paintings of people on the streets of Auckland. These early encounters shaped his interest in portraying individuals who are often unseen or overlooked and sparked an ongoing curiosity about the emotional and social impact of portraiture.
After art school, Moffat worked as a full-time artist and tutor for six years, exhibiting nationally in both group and solo exhibitions. His 2018 painting Elam, which depicts his peers working in the studio, won the Adam Portraiture Award. In 2019 he travelled to China for an artist residency, collaborating and exhibiting with local artists in Xi’an, Chengdu, and Beijing. This period marked a shift toward larger-scale works and the development of his signature red underpainting, which emerges through the surface of his portraits and reflects both the energy of the subject and the process behind the work.
In 2022, he returned to university to complete a Secondary Teaching Diploma. He is now in his third year teaching painting, photography, and design at Pukekohe High School, where he lives with his partner, Sarah. Most evenings he continues his studio practice.
Recent work focuses on artists within their studio environments. For Moffat, the studio is both a living space and an extension of the artist, rarely seen by an audience. His paintings reveal elements of process, including imperfections, layers, and decisions that exist before a finished work reaches the gallery.
In 2025, his painting The Garage was awarded second place in the Academy Prize for Visual Art, and Fractured was selected as a finalist in the National Contemporary Art Award at Te Whare Taonga o Waikato Museum & Gallery.
@logan.moffat
Mariska de Jager
South African, Mariska is a full-time ceramic sculptor whose work delves deeply into the expressive power of the human form and its imperfections. Fascinated by the stories etched into every face, she captures fleeting emotions – fear, despair, love, hope, anxiety, and dreams- through subtle shifts in expression, the delicate lines around the eyes, and the transformative curve of a mouth. Her sculptures serve as mirrors for the viewer, inviting personal identification and emotional resonance, while drawing directly from her own lived experiences and inner world. Through clay, Mariska transforms vulnerability into tangible form, crafting pieces that speak to the shared humanity we all carry. Her work is a quiet celebration of emotion made visible.
Originally from South Africa, Mariska immigrated to New Zealand 17 years ago with her husband and two children. After years of transition, the family has recently settled in the stunning Bay of Plenty region, where she now creates from her home studio in the beautiful coastal area of Ōhope. Surrounded by the serene beauty of Ōhope Beach and Ōhiwa Harbour, her practice thrives in this inspiring environment of sun-drenched shores and natural tranquility.
@mariska.dejager
Mariska de Jager
Mark Whippy
Mark’s art is inspired by observing the ordinary everyday people and scenes of his environment. Hoping to capture their stories and characters, finding the beauty of every day life. Mark’s style is a playful blend of realism and abstraction. His focus currently has been on the urban environment of Auckland City life. As well as being a practicing artist, Mark has a passion for teaching art and helping others grow with their skills. He teaches Drawing and Storytelling at AUT and has been teaching portrait and figure drawing at Studio One since 2022.
Mark is a Kiwi-Fijian artist born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand. Mark studied at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design from 2013 – 2015, he then studied online through American based school Watts Atelier of the Arts for another 3 years.Mark is part of the growing Life Drawing and Urban Sketching communities in Auckland and has been taking part in Life Drawing since 2014. In 2019 Mark was selected as a finalist in the 2020 Adam Portraiture Awards and 2019 Kumeu Art Awards. His portrait ‘Lion Man’ was selected to go on the Adam Portraiture Awards national tour. In 2022, he made his solo exhibition debut at Studio One Toi Tu titled “Auckland Under Construction”. Where he also began teaching portrait classes.Some of Marks artistic influences are Steve Huston, Jeffery Watts, Will Yu, Zhaoming Wu, Richard Schmid, Edward Hopper and Van Gogh.
@mark_whippy_art
Portrait Artist | Mark Whippy Art | New Zealand
Michelle Estall
English/Croatian/ Māori (Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri)
Michelle Estall is an acrylic painter whose illustrative approach to portraiture centres around visual story telling. She has been painting from her hometown of Tauranga since 2016, with her first solo exhibition the following year.
Michelle was a finalist in the Miles art award 2016, and the Kiingi Tuheitia portrait award in both 2021 and again in 2023. She was also a finalist in The Adam portrait award 2024 and a finalist in the Soho Art prize 2025.
With a particular interest in toi Māori practices, Michelle embarked on a learning journey through Te Wananga o Aotearoa to gain a better understanding of the visual language of traditional patterns, graduating with a Diploma in Māori and Indigenous Art in 2024.
Often Michelle’s portraiture focuses on the relationship between people and place, informed by Māori understandings of a spiritual connection to whenua, and inviting gentle reflection on identity, belonging and balance.
For Michelle, painting is both a creative outlet and a process of continual growth. Her work is driven by her ongoing exploration of enjoying the process of applying paint to canvas, valuing the journey just as much as the finished work.
@michelleestallart
michelleestallart
Natalie Gelder
English, Natalie’s curiosity lies in being gifted a structured fleshy casing, in which we house all the things we need to live and observe our existence in what feels like a magic realm, and how through that lens, we differently perceive how best to spend our time here.
Natalie is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist born in Yorkshire, England, with a current focus on figurative oil paintings. Nat moved to New Zealand in 2016 in her early twenties and is currently based in Auckland.
@nataliegelderart
Natalie Gelder
Odelle Morshuis
Odelle Morshuis lives and works from her studio and gallery in Bannockburn, Central Otago. She holds a Master’s degree in Fine Art from Wimbledon Art School, University of London, and a BA in Art History and Design from the University of Otago.
Her practice explores landscape, identity, and the psychological space between people and place. Working across painting and sculpture, Morshuis takes a process-led, material-driven approach, allowing each work to evolve through layering, erasing, and rebuilding. Meaning emerges through making, guided as much by the behaviour of materials as by initial intent.
Her imagery features outlined human figures that hover between presence and disappearance, often dissolving into their surroundings. These figures overlap and fragment, suggesting movement, memory, and the fluid nature of lived experience. Landscapes shift and destabilise, with tilted horizons, fractured forms, and uncertain space reflecting the complexities of belonging and perception.
Morshuis approaches landscape as a lived encounter rather than a fixed view. Moments of place act as memory triggers, where light, distance, and atmosphere carry emotional resonance. Her sculptural work extends this into physical space, using elements that shift, rotate, or reconfigure to reinforce ideas of instability and change.
Recent work includes ceramic and steel figures that explore the tension between fragility and permanence. Combining the immediacy of clay with the strength of steel, these forms echo the drawn lines of her paintings while asserting a physical presence, creating a dialogue between weight, balance, and memory.
She is currently represented by Blackdoor Gallery, Auckland.
@odellemorshuis
odelle
Reyna Henderson
Reyna’s work explores the quiet emotional terrain of everyday life – moments of pause, fatigue, and reflection that often go unnoticed. Through portraiture and figurative painting, she seeks to reveal the silent strength required to carry on, especially during times when we feel overwhelmed by our thoughts and become distant from the world around us. Working primarily in oils on canvas, Reyna aims not only to capture likeness but to create paintings that hold a space for deep, quiet emotional resonance.
Reyna is an artist from New Plymouth, New Zealand. She has always had a passion for drawing and painting, with a particular interest in capturing the human form. After studying and working full time in the retail interior design industry, Reyna returned to focus on her painting practice while balancing family commitments and raising her children.
@reyna_henderson
Reyna Henderson
Sally Spicer
Sally paints portraits and figures in watercolours and oils. Sally’s dedication to painting people is due to her fascination with the endless variety of personality, expression, gesture, and beauty of the human form. She uses warm, dramatic lighting and careful composition to draw the viewer into a scene, creating a sense of both intimacy and mystery. She likes to portray subtle expressions and mannerisms, leaving the narrative open to interpretation.
Sally was born and raised in Whangarei, Te Tai Tokerau, Aotearoa. She has a lifelong love of drawing and painting. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Elam School of Fine Arts, majoring in Printmaking.
She was a finalist in the Adam Portraiture Award 2020 and 2024, The Academy Prize for Visual Art 2025, and The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award 2025. She exhibits in galleries and takes commissions.
@sallyspicerart
Tracey Coakley
Australian, Tracey Coakley is a narrative oil painter working primarily in figurative painting and portraiture. Her subjects are often friends, family, and self-portraits, and over time have included her children as they navigate from childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Through vibrant wet-on-wet skin tones, layered glazing, and patterned fabrics, she builds depth and quiet narrative within her realistic work. A sense of personal connection to the subject is central to her process. She’s drawn to human emotions, even small, reflective moments, expressions, gestures, or pauses,her paintings suggest an inner story and invite the viewer to interpret their own narrative.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Tracey Coakley has lived in New Zealand since 2007 and works from her studio in Waipu, Northland. Predominantly self-taught, she has been painting since 2000 and working full-time as an artist since 2017, and also completed a Diploma of Visual Arts in 2006. She has exhibited widely across Australia and New Zealand. Her work has been recognised in national awards including the NZPPA Awards (2026), Craig’s Aspiring Art Award (2026), and the Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award (2020–2024). She has received Supreme Winner 2D at the Franklin Arts Awards (2022 & 2025) and the Kumeu Art Awards (2020).
@traceycoakleyart
Wanda Gillespie
Ngati Pakeha, Wanda Gillespie’s practice explores ideas of history, time, truth and mysticism. Drawing inspiration from ancient artefacts and the mathematical harmonies found in nature, her work often takes the form of interactive abacus sculptures alongside hand-carved figurative and portrait sculptures in wood. Through these forms, Gillespie reflects on systems of knowledge, belief and measurement, and the ways unseen structures shape human experience.
Wanda Gillespie is a contemporary artist working in sculpture, installation and public art. Known for her interactive abacus sculptures and finely carved figurative works in wood, she has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, including at the National Gallery of Australia and the Institute of Modern Art.
A finalist in numerous national sculpture prizes, she has received multiple residencies and awards, including support from the Australia Council for the Arts and Creative New Zealand. Gillespie is currently on a 3 year artist-in-residence program at the Victorian Woodworkers Association in Naarm/Melbourne.
WANDA GILLESPIE
Artworks for Figurative Artists Exhibition: BETWEEN US will be added to this event soon.
Exhibition catalogue coming soon
