Local creatives
Explore some of the diverse artists, writers, poets, actors and performers that work, live or play in
East Auckland. To see musicians, click here.
A Piece of Work
Frith Jenkins is a local artist working in mixed media, including mosaics and painting.
Agata Smuzniak Hubbard
Agata Smuzniak Hubbard is an artist and photographer who is passionate about capturing events and the uniqueness of nature. She explores fine arts, mixed media techniques and intuitive self-expression. Her passions are promoting arts in the community, where culture, art, creativity and self-development can be expressed.
Akiko Diegel
Akiko Diegel is a Japanese-born artist who lives and works in New Zealand. Her work has been described as dealing with traces of existence, whether that be items that can be worn, worked, worried, carried or used for comfort. Ideas in her work often relate to the interconnectedness of the world around us, cultures and often are reflections on people, behaviours or moments.
Amanda Brett
Amanda is a professional artist and travel painter specialising in watercolour. In conjunction with her studio practice, Amanda is also a keen plein air painter of city scenes and landscapes. Her original artwork & prints, live classes & workshops and video lessons can be found on her website.
Amylia
Since the age of 13, Amy Wang (stage name Amylia) has been performing in Auckland as a solo vocalist. Notable venues include Sky City Convention Centre, The Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Uxbridge Art Centre, Five Knots and more. She covers a range of genres with her guitar from pop, jazz, folk to R&B.
Andrew Barns-Graham
Andrew Barns-Graham is a full-time artist and part-time teacher. His work focuses primarily on portraiture and has exhibited his work at galleries such as Sanderson Contemporary, Grey Gallery and more recently Arthaus Contemporary.
Andrew Martin
Andrew is a local artist who practices at Māpura Studios. Born with hypoglycaemia resulting in brain damage. While non-verbal, Andrew communicates via some sign language. Andrew enjoys working with colour and layering. He applies the paint methodically with sporadic movements and is keen to experiment with different mark-making techniques.
Angie Ellis
Angie Ellis is a local artist who has been attending Māpura Studios for about 4 years. Angie’s practice uses green and dragons. She first met these two female dragons, Adley and Professor, at the zoo and they have become very special to me as her favourite animals. They are inseparable. They eat silver beet to strengthen their wings so they can fly around the zoo and can also lay eggs.
Anju Desai
Anju is an entrepreneur, the founder of Bollywood Party in NZ, public speaker, and an artist. She advocates strongly for women’s empowerment, overcoming life’s challenges, embracing positivity and energy, sharing wisdom, cultivating resilience, creativity and committing to community service. These drivers are fed into the many threads of her career.
Areez Katki
Born in Mumbai, India, Areez Katki is a multidisciplinary artist and writer who was raised in Howick. He is represented by Tim Melville Gallery.
Aura Nusantara
Aura Nusantara is an Indonesian Traditional Dance Group in Aotearoa, New Zealand. With cultural clothing and music, their mesmerising performances have happened not only in East Auckland but all-around Auckland.
Bel Butler
Bel is a multi-disciplinary artist with a current focus on film and photography. She is driven to be the mirror to each subject, assisting them in sharing their authentic stories through a variety of visual storytelling techniques.
Briana Woolliams
Briana Woolliams’ artistic practice incorporates poetry, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, performance and text-based works. She has exhibited around New Zealand, including at Allpress Gallery, Tacit and Malcolm Smith Gallery.
Bruce Richards
Bruce Richards first began making wooden toys for over 20 years. Using mostly recycled timber and native species from tress that have blown over, Bruce’s creations are informed by his own designs, rather than books. After retiring from engineering in 2006, his practice is now focused on wooden clocks. Some of his creations can be found at the Classy Crafts Markets.
Brunelle Dias
Brunelle is a local emerging painter born in India and migrated to East Auckland. Intimate moments are often shared through her works, holding familial photographs, relationships, personal encounters, identity, affiliation and home in subtle and figurative ways. With work display in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Carla Ruka
Carla Ruka (Nga Puhi, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Porouri) represents Aotearoa for Indigenous ceramics. Carla is a formidable artist in her field and completed her studies in Maori Art and Design with a focus on ceramics from a Maori and Wahine Toa perspective.
Carmela Nepomuceno
Carmela Nepomuceno’s practice features themes of faith and identity. After a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, she continues explore a multidisciplinary approach with sculpture, installation and drawing.
Chris Baxter
Chris Baxter is a local artist who practices at Māpura Studios. He has been making art for many years. He likes racing cars and writing words. He likes making art about all of his favourite things. Chris brings pictures of cars, motorbikes, horses and dogs to Māpura Studios and draws from them. He likes paint and colouring pencils. The art is part of him.
Claudia Robin Gunn
Cockle Bay songwriter Claudia Robin Gunn’s captivating kindie melodies capture the essence of childhood. She loves bringing her diverse creative experience in video, art and music together in new projects.
Daisy Nicholas
The contemporary artist, based in East Auckland, focuses on creating art to document environmental forces and features. Documentation is often done through photographic processes with an emphasis on environmental cyanotype. Her cyanotypes nod to the traditional form of photography and a contemporary method echoing the beautiful blue rockpools, riverbeds etcs.
Dance Pasion Tango
Dance Pasion is New Zealand's premiere Tango duo, John Flower and Natallia Ramanchuk. The two demonstrate how Argentine Tango contains elements of embrace, interpretive movement and heart-stopping anticipation.
Diesel and her bone
Own and created by Miss Sammy Lane, Diesel and her bone is a collection of vintage and Rockabilly inspired homewares, drawings and jewellery. Pieces can be purchased through Chooice.
Elise De Silva
Elise De Silva is an award winning watercolour artist working from her studio in Howick, Auckland. She specialises in wildlife and nautical subjects. Anything where there's water involved! She is President of the Howick Art Group and an active plein air painter. She teaches at Uxbridge and runs workshops.
Evelyn Dunstan
Evelyn Dunstan works in lost wax kiln cast glass, and also in stained glass, fused glass, flamework glass and ceramics. She tutors locally and overseas, and mentors graduate and postgraduate students.
Falefatu Enari
Faltefau is a local artist who attends Māpura Studios. He is a Samoan New Zealand artist who has been making art for 20 years. He likes drawing disco songs, disco dance movements and shopping centres. Chris also likes doing animation – and pictures of things. It comes from his imagination.
Faye Williams
Faye Williams created Faye’s Beaded Jewellery, in 2016. She has since hand-stitched over 2000 pieces - jewellery and accessories, to 3D works including animals, geometric shapes, boxes and art pieces. Her works are available for sale online at Chooice or in person at Classy Crafts, Beachlands Market and Pine Harbour Mini Market.
Greta Umbers
Greta Umbers is a visual artist and mark maker who primarily uses graphite and paper to create drawings that are informed by, yet extend beyond the tradition of figurative art.
Gyda Emslie-Tutt
Gyda is an Arts Therapist. Since 2020, she has engaged in clinical work continuously with children, young people and adults experiencing grief, loss, change and in some cases, significant trauma, offering the modalities of visual arts and Sand Tray. She enjoys making sculpture, working in Nature with found objects and hold a professional membership of ANZACATA.
Helen Bankers
Helen Bankers is a photographer whose personal work focuses on the natural world.
Hailtree
Hailtree is a multi-disciplinary artist from Aotearoa currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau. They turn landscapes into dreamscapes. She use symmetry to satisfy the craving for order we have thanks to this strange universe we find ourselves in.
Helene Henare
Helene Henare is an artist living in Ness Valley, Clevedon. She is interested in all things creative.
Jennifer Clark
Jenny is a painter and has experimented with many forms of art including mosaics, watercolours, acrylics and oils. She runs classes from her home in Cockle Bay, where students develop skills in a relaxed environment.
Joel Nicholls
Joel Nicholls art practice is open to the minds and imaginations of the people. He says “sometimes we forget how to dream, how to imagine and how to wonder what could be. If only for a moment you get lost in in my work… then I consider myself a successful artist.”
Jules Turner
Jules Turner is a multidisciplinary artist and educator, inspiring and motivating her students to become lifelong learners.
Julia Zhu
Julia is a visual artist and crafter interested in gestural mark-making and texture in drawing and painting. Her current practice focuses on chalk lettering and illustrations at bars, nightclubs, cafes and gyms such as Ding Dong Lounge, Infinity nightclub, Toasted Coffee and Anytime Fitness.
Julian Hindson
Julian is a local senior designer and creative. Between his business Titanium Design Ltd. with wife Kate Hindson, art direction and painting, Julian keep busy in his home studio with an array of projects and clients.
Julie Zhu
Julie is a filmmaker and storyteller focused on championing marginalised stories. In 2017 she directed short documentary East Meets East for Loading Docs which has screened at festivals in London and New York.
Katie Blundell
Katie Blundell is a Contemporary New Zealand Artist. Focusing on the human experience, her work is both
personal and universal. Her artwork is enjoyed my many collectors both here and abroad. From her Gallery + Studio in Clevedon she creates, exhibits and teaches.
Kate Hindson
Kate is a local creative, designer and Illustrator. Through her business Titanium Design Ltd. with husband Julian Hindson, and freelance projects, Kate’s practice highlights visual story-telling. Some of her work includes illustrations for Auckland Council and children’s book as well as public installations.
Kenzie Alan
Kenzie is a designer who specialises in illustration, both traditional and digital.
Kitty Chang
Kitty writes stories based on the experiences of early Chinese migrants to New Zealand.
Kohna Zari Ko
Kohna Zari Ko is a project and creative collective led by the Migrant Women’s Group. The collective mend and upcycle garments incorporate traditional and modern stitchwork and craft. Through these processes, the women connect as a community by learning more about one another, as well as connecting the public to their home countries.
Larry Abreño
Larry Abreño is a freestyle poet and artist who uses coffee as his medium for creating art. He has published and launched his poetry book Crumbs from the heart during Arts Out East Festival in 2018.
Linda Darby-Coring
Linda is a World of Wearable Arts designer.
Lucinda Boermans
Lucinda Boermans is an interdisciplinary artist based in East Auckland. Boermans’ practice derives from an interest in movement, embodied experience, language and learning. Central to her practice is research-based enquiry that focuses upon relational aesthetics, affect theory and transformation.
Lucy Olcese
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lucy Olcese, now lives and works in New Zealand. Holding a Visual Arts Bachelor’s and Graphic Designer degree, Lucy defines herself as a creative who loves exploration. Her participatory installations, objects and performances are made using different materials and techniques. By looking for deep connections, Lucy offers unique experiences through her creations.
Lucy’s Instagram
Marilyn J Bakker
Marilyn J Bakker is a writer and small business owner, and is the author of Adventures of Josephine Mary Cresswell; Danger at Devil’s Cove; The Mystery of the Missing Artefact and In Search of the Tarasque.
Megan Murphy
Megan Murphy is a multi-media artist. She lives in Howick, Auckland. At present, she is focusing on a series of oil paintings based around the sand marks left behind on local beaches. She also runs a part-time art school – MEGANZ School of Visual Arts, aimed at students aged 9 - adults.
Merv Appleton
Contemporary landscape painter Merv Appleton is a keen plein air painter. He is a sought-after teacher for workshops and demonstrations and enjoys passing his knowledge on.
Mo Stewart
Mo Stewart is interested in pushing the boundaries of drawing materials, and exploring how they react to each other.
Monty Montgomery
Monty Montgomery is the performance alias of Howick local Olivia Montgomery. Monty is a gender bending drag clown, hosting, producing and performing in shows around New Zealand and abroad.
Natasha Bidesi
Natasha Bidesi is a writer, media fanatic and proud woman of colour. As someone who channels strong visuals and emotive reactions, she finds her inspiration in the smallest of life’s waves.
Nathan Wilson
Nathan Wilson is an artist whose developing painting practice explores abstraction through unconventional mark-making. He works with a heavily instinctual and experimental approach that embraces organic, chanced-based ways of painting. Nathan has exhibited works in Auckland, and in Nelson.
Norrie Montgomery
For over 15 years, Norrie Montgomery has photographed some of Auckland’s most infamous parties and events, including America’s Cup Louis Vuitton, openings of prestigious fashion houses Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Coach, the Big Day Out and various Pride celebrations. In recent years, he has enjoyed capturing wildlife, nature, and surf conditions across Tāmaki Makaurau.
Olive Breach
Olive Breach is a mural artist and art tutor. She has completed numerous mural projects with young talented students and in 2013 and 2017, two of her senior school murals won prizes in the Resene Mural Masterpiece Awards.
Paia Swanson Terepo
Paia Swanson Terepo (Ngā Puhi) has been weaving for over 35 years. She has taught for 20 years in New Zealand and overseas. For the past five years, Paia has been facilitating weaving programmes at Te Whare o Matariki o Owairoa.
Pauljude
Pauljude is a Chinese Calligrapher and has featured in multiple international competitions. He has also taught Chinese Literature, Manadrin as well as calligraphy. Currently, Pauljude is a Picture Framer out East.
Ramon Robertson
The sculptures Ramon produces are small to medium in size and are often figurative. Plaster and concrete have been the materials of choice for their inert, yet versatile qualities. For the past year, he has been experimenting with bronze trying to obtain a similarly utilitarian or industrial feel to that of the concrete and plaster works.
Reuben Lankshear
Originally from the Bay of Plenty, he is passionate about our relationship to the Ocean. Reuben studied 3D design, Painting and Graphic design and found Printmaking to be the perfect blend of sculptural fabrication and graphic attention to detail. He works mostly with Woodblock reduction printmaking, but I also enjoy other handmade printing techniques too.
Roshni Abhyankar
Roshni is a young creative, who strives to work successfully across disciplines. From animation and filmmaking to painting (in a digital and traditional sense) to creating one of a kind pieces with yarn. In 2021, Roshni displayed work in the Summer Nova Young at Art Botany hub and directed a short animation film Bookworm's Bout, which won Industry's favourite,
Ruth Hammond
Ruth Hammond is a local creative. Her personal experience with spirituality has informed an intuitive style of writing. Ruth’s books Soft whispers…small shouts….deep waters and Being with God encourage readers to explore their own spiritual journey.
Samantha Cheng
Working with installation, video, and sculpture, Samantha is interested in how humour and failure operate in art. Based in Tāmaki Makaurau, she can often be found trying ideas such as running into the sunset or taking holidays during 10-minute work breaks.
Sarah Walker-Holt
Sarah Walker-Holt is a visual artist and contemporary jeweller who tests the tactile qualities of wearable objects, using wood and metal mechanisms. Sarah was part of Handshake 3, 12 jewellery artists from Aotearoa selected for national and international exhibitions.
Sue Collyns
Sue specialises in realism but also explores other mediums and styles including abstract and detailed drawings. Her works are in private collections in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Tim Webber
A New Zealand furniture, lighting and object designer, Tim draws inspiration from observations in everyday life. Tim runs his very own design house, Tim Webber Design.
Toni Mosley
Toni Mosley loves ink on paper. She does printmaking, drawing, and makes artist books. Her work is inspired by the people she meets and the stories they tell. She loves working in the community, through pop-up print workshops and teaching art classes.
Valere
Ethereal, serene and heartfelt, Valere’s sound is a mix of soul and synth. Valere is Shana Llorando, a songwriter and producer based in Auckland. A palate of warm new wave sounds, pop melodies and R&B beats are showcased in her impeccable arrangements.
WeiHsin Kuo
WeiHsin Kuo is a Taiwanese photographer with a degree in Visual Communication Design. With 10 years of photography experience, she documents life and observes details through a creative lens - the textures, traces, light and shadows. Working mostly in photography, WeiHsin also loves the storytelling capability of video and capturing moments in real time. Her goal is to record the passage of time through art and share a unique perspective.
Wendy Hannah
Wendy Hannah has been painting for 15 years. She uses colour as emotive language. Wendy is interested in the alchemy of paint and is influenced by ecological and political themes. She believes art has the ability to make change, as a way to communicate.
Wesley John Fourie
Wesley John Fourie is an award-winning emerging artist. Wesley’s textile work often manifest as large-scale soft sculptures. These ephemeral, highly emotive installations explore themes of nature, spirituality, queer sexuality, and native flora. Their work is held in private collections across Aotearoa New Zealand, India, Japan, Nepal, Germany, Italy, United States of America, and Australia.
ZaZing
ZaZing is contemporary sterling silver jewellery, handmade by Nikki and Aj. Aj and Nikki, originally from the UK, moved to New Zealand in 2001. In 2006 they began a jewellery design and construction class which ignited a passion. What started out as a hobby is now a flourishing business.
Zhang Kai
Kai is a Chinese photographer local to the East Auckland community and passionate about capturing moments amongst people. As secondary business, Kai has photographed many events for LOVE Dance NZ and the Celebrating Cultures event at Barry Curits Park.