IMaGO is a term for the final form of a metamorpH just AS it FIRST TAKEs FLIGHT. My life until the moment of my first solo exhibition on 8 AUGUST 2025, the day of the opening of the Lion’s GATE, WAS PREPARING me for my soul’s curriculum as an artist. some of my earliest memories are drawing animals and faces, being able to transfer what my eyes saw onto a page gave me great satisfaction.

As I MOVED THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN NEW ZEALAND as a high achieving academic, the implicit and explicit messaging was to study subjects that would lead me to a professional career, higher salaries and presumably a “better life”. FOR A WHILE I CLUNG ONTO ART as a subject in high school, intuitively knowing my soul needed it.

my critical mind doubted i was good enough to “succeed” as an artist, and art is not a subject that lends itself so easily to objective measurement as the sciences, maths and economics, where I was objectively excelling. So in my striving for validation I abandoned my artistic soul and found myself studying law and economics through university and creating a very successful career as an intellectual property lawyer, ultimately being internationally recognised FOR MY WORK AS AN intellectual property STRATEGIST.

ART RE-EMERGED ONLY WHEN I WAS in emotional turmoil, as a processing mechanism, usually in the form of self portraits. DURING COVID LOCK-DOWN YEARS I started participating in weekly online life drawing sessions, using charcoal to express the naked human form. It was a cathartic experience AND I found myself in FLOW, happily engaged for 2-3 hours. this was a remembering my soul couldn’t ignore.

my first exhibition, named imago, gave tribute to my transformation - a discovery of self love and reemergence from MY dark night of the soul AS ‘ARTIST’.