See artwork on Saatchi Art

Held Figures is a series that explores what it means to be contained — emotionally, psychologically, and physically — without being constrained. The figures in these works are simplified, almost archetypal, yet they carry a strong sense of presence. They are not portraits of individuals, but representations of states of being.

Each figure appears held within a structured, layered ground. The backgrounds are built from repeated fragments, creating a sense of enclosure and support rather than confinement. This layering acts as both a backdrop and a quiet architecture, suggesting stability, memory, or accumulated experience. The figures sit calmly within these structures, neither pushing against them nor dissolving into them.

Night Figures is a series of figurative works that emerged slowly, through layering, erasure, and return. Each painting sits in a nocturnal space — a landscape of shadow, muted colour, and suspended emotion — where the figure is present but never fully resolved.

The women in these works are not portraits in the traditional sense. They are not specific individuals, nor do they offer narrative clues. Instead, they act as vessels for interior states: solitude, endurance, quiet tension, and the stillness that comes after dusk. Their faces are pared back, sometimes fragile, sometimes confrontational, as if caught between appearing and withdrawing.

Across the series, recurring elements surface instinctively — branching forms, dark horizons, fractured grounds. These motifs suggest thought patterns, memory, or emotional undercurrents rather than literal landscapes. The figures are held within these spaces, neither fully embedded nor entirely separate, creating a subtle tension between containment and release.

Colour plays a restrained but deliberate role. Deep blues, greys, and violets establish a nocturnal atmosphere, while occasional reds act as quiet signals — warmth, vulnerability, or persistence — within the surrounding darkness. Nothing is decorative; every mark is there to support mood and balance.

Night Figures is less about storytelling and more about recognition. These works invite the viewer to pause, to sit with ambiguity, and to find resonance rather than answers. They occupy the space between presence and absence — a place where emotional states linger without needing to be named.

This series reflects my ongoing interest in the psychological dimensions of figurative work, where the figure becomes a site of reflection rather than depiction. Night Figures is not about the night itself, but about what surfaces when things become quiet enough to be seen.

Held States is a series shaped by pressure rather than release.

These works emerged slowly, through layering, covering, eroding, and holding back. Instead of expressive marks pushing outward, the surfaces accumulate restraint — colour laid down, softened, obscured, and partially withheld. The tension in the series comes not from drama, but from what is contained.

There are landscapes we visit, and landscapes we carry. For me, Rangitoto has always belonged to the second kind — a shape that settles into memory and becomes part of how you see the world. Its calm, unmistakable silhouette has watched over so many moments in my life that it eventually found its way into my art. Not as a background, but as a quiet companion to the women who appear in this new portrait series.

There are some paintings that don’t arrive all at once. They gather themselves slowly — a wash of muted colour one morning, a shift of light the next, a small intuition that lingers until it insists on becoming form.

I came across a note in one of my old journals recently — a line I must have jotted down years ago:

“…taking a figurative image to the verge — but just short — of abstraction gives it a mysterious and compelling tension.”