Hi Andrew! Can you believe it's been 10 years since we collaborated on the AM x Meadowlark rings!?
No way time must be full of distracting events.

How do you feel about the rings now?
I think they’re great, very authentic. Couldn't do such straight channelling of some of the subculture stuff now, I'm too old haha.

How has your work evolved over the last 10 years?
Last 10 years in my painting has been a naturally unfocussed artist trying hard to focus on consolidation rather than discarding great unfinished ideas. Haha, I think my responsibility as a painter is to make the best work I can regardless of content or embarrassment, too much honesty. I think I have consolidated ideas quickly and slowly. I need another 20 years to get the job done though.

Has your creative process changed over this time?
One thing is slowly integrating computer, digital painting and photography and lighting of sets and models (nothing new for painters in this regard, consider Caravaggio (1571-1610), more portraiture.

What messages are you aiming to convey through your work and has this evolved through your career?
Trying to keep my painting on messaging things that other arts cannot do so well. So it’s hard to say and easier to show. So I keep on showing! But to be helpful I'll say: things portraiture can do, things that painting has been on about for 500 years, not stuff from just now.

What impact do you hope to have on your viewers?
Something human. It’s funny, it’s hard to talk about my own artform form rather than observations of another. This week I think folk songs and the performance of them is a good comparison. The voice is a natural connection - a song in a language you speak, a young and voice box we have too. Has to be emotionally honest. I think paint is a nice visceral jolt to physical humanness like hearing the voice is, oil paint is flesh like.

I want to have a human impact, maybe something like we're only human, but have the viewer know this more than just hear it. But there's lots I'm open to about how painting can do things .

Have you faced any creative challenges or had pivotal moments through these years?
Oh yeah, being an artist anywhere smaller has is difficulties, social pressure to just work a proper job and contribute to society, I've got me/cfs so my health is pretty terrible and I'm no good doing proper work. There’s all the injustices and bitternesses of seeing complacent artists become unjustly well known is a bit depressing.

Do you have any upcoming projects you are excited about?
A solo show at Ivan Anthony Gallery Auckland last September.

Is there anything else you would like to add?
Life’s not fair. I'm disabled and mental and want this to give me artistic superpowers, but haha I don't know, some healthy mild mannered people can make good art too I guess, don't know that many but…