You're Overlooking It
In a video titled Your Best Art Is Hiding In Plain Sight Louise Fletcher explores how personal fascinations and individual interests serve as the foundation for developing a unique artistic style. By examining how specific obsessions can inform creative processes and techniques, the discussion encourages artists to embrace their own curiosities to build more authentic, meaningful, and distinct bodies of work.
Artists spend so much time trying to find their artistic voice, searching for an original subject, idea or style that will make their work feel truly their own. But what if the beginnings of your best art are already there – hidden in the things you’ve loved, collected, photographed or returned to for years? Louise explores the difference between simply choosing a subject and following a deeper fascination. Finding your artistic voice may not require searching for something new. It may mean paying closer attention to what you already notice -particularly the things you’ve dismissed as too ordinary, personal, sentimental or strange to become serious art.
So what do you collect, photograph, read about or notice when nobody has asked you to? And what might be hiding underneath your attraction to it? Click on the link below to watch Your Best Art Is Hiding In Plain Sight where Louise explore the ideas, questions and creative processes that help artists develop a deeper, more personal art practice.
Annie Leibovitz's Approach
Annie Leibovitz’s Approach: Learning Photography by Seeing is a 12 minute video created by Alex Kilbee, of The Photographic Eye. Alex explores the artistic progression of Annie Leibovitz, tracing a journey from early documentary-style work at Rolling Stone to the highly theatrical, conceptual portraits defining a legendary career. He looks at how influences, personal relationships, and a rich visual library helped shape the unique perspective of this iconic photographer.
Alex believes photography is more than just gear or technique and The Photographic Eye, is all about helping you see the world differently – through the lens of curiosity, craft, and connection. Alex believes photography is a lifelong dialogue with light, emotion, and meaning. His mission is simple: to help you stop capturing pixels and start capturing soul. His aim is to focus on the art of seeing, to explore the mindset and visual language behind truly great images. In The Photographic Eye Alex uses select images from influential photographers under fair use – so we can learn, be inspired, and deepen our appreciation of the art form together. Fair use allows for the educational, critical, and transformative use of copyrighted material. The images shared are not for profit or reproduction – they’re part of a visual conversation, a way to honor and explore the work of those who came before us. Let’s keep the spirit of photography alive – not just by taking pictures, but by truly seeing.
If you want to be inspired by one of the greats – Annie Leibovitz – take a wee break from life to watch the video below.
Life Drawing Workshop
Join Duncan Pepe Long in two upcoming workshops. Duncan is the winner of New Zealand’s 2026 Adam Portraiture Award, the country’s premier portrait painting prize. This is a rare opportunity to learn directly from an award-winning artist in small group setting and relaxed learning environment.
Duncan is based in Auckland. His practice centers on portraiture in oils, often depicting family and friends. He is a committed advocate for observational drawing and currently teaches Life Drawing at Unitec Institute of Technology.
In these workshops working from a live unclothed model, participants will be guided through a series of drawing exercises exploring gesture, proportion, form and tone. Drawing on his experience as a figurative and portrait artist, Duncan will provide individual feedback throughout the session, helping participants develop confidence, technical skills, and a deeper understanding of the human form. Suitable for both beginners and those wishing to build on their existing practice, the workshop offers an introduction to this time-honoured drawing tradition.
- No experience in life drawing is necessary
- All materials are included in the ticket price
- Suitable for ages 18 and over
- Limited places available, bookings essential
- Book either session individually or both sessions. While each workshop can be attended independently, attendees are welcome to attend both evenings.
Friday 6th Nov & Saturday 7th Nov 5.30-7.30pm | Tickets $48 | Whangarei Art Museum
See The Adam Portraiture Exhibition
The Adam Portraiture Award is New Zealand’s most prestigious and popular portraiture prize generously sponsored by the Adam Foundation. It is a major touring exhibition which gives contemporary portrait artists the opportunity to have their work shown on the national stage. It plays an important role in recording the changing face of Aotearoa.
The exhibition of 43 finalists is now on a nationwide tour.
29 Aug – 10 Nov | Te Atamira | 11/12 Hawthorne Drive | Queenstown
Nov 2026 – Jan 2027 | Marlborough Art Gallery | 15 High Street | Blenheim
12 Feb – 31 March 2027 | Mahara, |The Cromwell Memorial Events Centre
Dippie Turns Heads In New York
In a trendy, lower Manhattan neighbourhood, New Zealand artist Owen Dippie has become somewhat of a local celebrity.
Painted to honour New York icon Jean-Michel Basquiat, an impressive giant mural is painted onto the side of one of Bowery’s many brick buildings – a painting so high it dominates the intersection at six stories tall. Dippie was introduced to the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat by his high school art teacher when he was thirteen and it immediately had a profound impact on my life,” Dippie said. Basquiat is legendary in the New York art scene. Born in Brooklyn, by the mid-1980s his art was famous not just in a rapidly changing New York City, but around the world. Basquiat’s distinctive style, heavily influenced by graffiti culture, found an audience in an art world traditionally dominated by white artists.Basquiat formed a close friendship with Andy Warhol, who leased him an apartment on 57 Great Jones St, where Dippie’s mural now stands proudly beside. I first visited the city in 2006 and my tourist thing was to come to 57 Great Jones Street and pay my respects to an artist that had such a huge impact on my upbringing, said Dippie, describing it as a ‘pilgrimage’. I’ve since visited the city so many times, and…in 2024, I was here again, standing outside number 57 and seeing the wall and just how incredible it would be to honour my hero, my childhood hero, my fellow painter…bring him back in his old neighbourhood, but ultimately pay my respects from painter to painter.
Dippie, who self-funded the project, had a long list of logistical challenges to overcome before he could even pick up a spray can or move in a scissor-lift. There were building preservation committees, securing permits, talking to local businesses, and finding a temporary home for the cars that used the small carpark at the base of the building.The project itself took almost a month, hindered in part due to the temperamental Autumn weather. It’s been beautiful to talk to the people of New York and of this neighbourhood, interacting with people and hearing their thoughts – and people that lived here when Jean-Michel lived here. It’s an honour to be able to continue keeping his spirit alive said Dippie.
Winner Of Walker & Hall Award
Hawkes Bay/Whanganui based artist Rowan Love has won the prestigious 2026 Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award for his work Industry. A total of 281 entries were received from across Aotearoa, with 38 works selected for the finalists’ exhibition. The $10,000 non-acquisitive prize was announced at the Gala Award Ceremony event at Waiheke Art Gallery on Saturday, 17 October.
This year’s selector and judge was Dick Frizzell, who said of the winning work, ‘There were a lot of very good works in this room, and the winner’s light took a WEE while to assert itself. It’s not an easy painting, but it IS a spectacular painting…on every level. A true winner.’
Rowan says of his work ‘I paint familiar urban and rural environments in states of decline, using acrylic and oil on board to explore the tension between nature, industry, and memory. My work lingers on absence, decay, and the uneasy nostalgia found in places shaped by ambition yet slowly being reclaimed.’
The exhibition shows at the Waiheke Art Gallery from 16 October to 29 November 2026.