Kirsty’s upbringing between rural Wairarapa and Hawkes Bay has heavily influenced her love of landscape. Additionally, her early tight knit community of both Pakeha and Māori left her with a strong desire to further express her mixed cultural relationships through her artwork. Asking of herself, “how can my art contribute to our identity as a country”?

Now settled on Wellington’s south coast Kirsty takes great inspiration from the harbour’s history and the ever-changing moods of the rugged coastline.

Working as a printmaker from her Lyall Bay studio, Kirsty has traversed the Wellington coastline and beyond with her sketchbooks, not only drawing but researching the history. From archaeological diggings to favoured fishing bays and associated kai of individual areas, she has tried to learn as much as she can. This process of understanding history before making art has set her up for developing her unique style, which is heavily influenced by our position here in the Pacific.

Kirsty’s hand printed landscape etchings are merged with patterning, printed from her bamboo wood block etchings. This enables her to convey a story, reflecting a sense of the past within a contemporary landscape. Story telling through pattern work is common across cultures here in the Pacific and she incorporates it into her art as a way to express that. The result can give the impression of masi or tapa cloth, which is fitting when discovering that bark cloth (aute) was in fact brought to Aotearoa with Māori, however lost through time when the paper mulberry tree it comes from wasn’t able to thrive here.