From School Doodles to Primetime TV

I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I started creating little sketches for my classmates. By the time I got to high school, I was filling up the back of my schoolbooks with drawings instead of work in the front. 

I even started drawing caricatures of my teachers and selling calendars to my classmates. The funny part is, some of the teachers ended up buying them too.

I made my first sale when I was 11. It was never quite enough to live on, but selling art has always been part of my life. Everything changed in 2021 when Covid hit. I decided to step back from commission work and finally spend some time developing my own style. That was the moment when I realised art could be more than a side gig.

There have been a few big turning points along the way. In 2007, I got to share an exhibition space with Ralph Hotere, which was massive for me. In 2010, I showed work in Guernsey, which was a blast. 

Back in 1999, I became the youngest ever member of the Otago Art Society. And in 2021, my story was featured on TV3’s The Project. It went to air on a Friday night primetime slot and followed me visiting my mate Sir Peter Leitch, the Mad Butcher, to deliver a drawing. That was huge for exposure and definitely a career highlight.

As for influences, a family friend of my parents is Steve Harris, a Kiwi-born Australian artist. We had one of his still-life paintings on the wall when I was growing up, and I would stare at it for hours, taking in all the detail and brush strokes. 

I’ve also always loved the inkwork and linework of comic books and graphic novels. That inspired me to try my own take on aerial cityscapes, kind of like the famous Superman comics, but without Superman flying through the scene.

From doodles in the back of schoolbooks to developing my own hand-drawn style of towns and cities, it’s been a pretty wild ride. And honestly, I feel like I’m only just getting started.