The colour of light
The Colour of Light explores what happens when we truly pay attention to a place.
I am drawn to fleeting moments in the landscape that make me stop and look. Light might break unexpectedly through the trees or shift across the surface of water. A path can disappear into the distance and suddenly an ordinary place becomes completely absorbing.
When I paint, I am not trying to reproduce the landscape exactly as it appears. I want to capture how it felt to experience it. Some elements become heightened while others begin to fall away.
Memory has a way of editing a place. Certain colours become stronger. Particular details remain vivid while others disappear completely. I am interested in that distortion, not as an inaccuracy, but as another way of seeing.
As a painting develops, the landscape begins to fragment. Recognisable forms loosen into colour and individual marks, while just enough remains to hold a sense of place. Paths recur throughout the collection, often drawing the eye towards something beyond what can be seen. For me, they carry a sense of movement and discovery.
Colour becomes a way of translating experience. Blues shift into violets and greens find their way into pinks and corals. These choices respond less to what I know a landscape should look like and more to how I remember it feeling.
Up close, the landscape can dissolve almost entirely into fragments of colour. Step back and those fragments begin to connect. A mark becomes a reflection. A shape becomes a tree. Gradually, a place emerges. I am interested in that space between what is actually there and what we perceive.
Light sits at the centre of the collection. It can reveal something previously unnoticed or transform somewhere familiar. Sometimes it is enough to make an ordinary place suddenly feel significant.
Ultimately, The Colour of Light is about those moments of heightened attention when everything else seems to fall away. For a moment, we are completely present within a place.
These paintings are not exact records of where I have been. They are what remained with me afterwards.
Bella Nirvana
The Way Within
Oil on Canvas 91 × 122 cm $2,900 NZD
A reflection on the paths we follow and the moments that invite us to look inward. Light leads the way through the landscape, blurring the space between where we are going and what we discover within ourselves. There is a sense of curiosity in not knowing what lies beyond the bend. A reminder that sometimes the journey itself reveals more than the destination.
everyday light
Oil on Canvas 122 x 91cm $2,500 NZD
Everyday Light is about noticing the beauty hidden within the places we pass through without a second thought.
Sunlight filters through the trees and scatters across an ordinary suburban path, transforming something familiar into a moment worth noticing. Through layers of broken colour and shifting light, the painting reflects on how much can be found in the everyday when we slow down long enough to really see it.
Sweet Spot
Oil on Board 40.5 x 51cm $1,100 NZD
Sweet Spot captures the twinkle of sunlight as it dances across the landscape, scattering colour and warmth in every direction. It reflects that fleeting moment when everything seems to fall perfectly into place, the feeling of finding yourself in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.
Break Through
Oil and mixed media on wood 35.5 × 28 cm
$800 NZD
Break Through reflects the moment when uncertainty begins to ease and space opens up around you. There is a sense of relief in the clearing, a place to pause, rest and simply be before continuing on. Rather than rushing towards what comes next, the work holds onto that brief feeling of stillness: the quiet reassurance that, for now, you have made it through.
Living Cathedral
Oil on Canvas 61 x 91.5cm
$2,200 NZD
Living Cathedral draws its name from the tree itself, its sweeping branches rising and arching overhead like the structure of a cathedral. Across its surface, fragments of colour catch the light like pieces of stained glass, transforming the tree into something luminous and almost sacred. Up close, the landscape dissolves into individual marks of colour, but with distance, those fragments come together and the tree reveals itself. The painting reflects on the extraordinary things we can discover in the natural world when we stop long enough to truly see them.
Echoes
Oil on board 40.5 × 51 cm $1,650 NZD
Here, light is not simply observed but felt. Filtering through the trees, it creates a rhythm of colour and shadow that transforms the landscape into a living, luminous experience.
The Long Way Home
Oil on wood 61 × 46 cm $2,200 NZD
The Long Way Home captures the quiet comfort of a familiar path, where twinkling light and shifting colour invite us to slow down and savour the journey rather than the destination.
Turning Point
Oil on Board 30.5 x 30.5cm $850 NZD
Turning Point captures the feeling of standing on the edge of change, ready to follow the path without knowing exactly where it will lead. We never quite know what is waiting just around the corner, but there is possibility in moving forward anyway. The light ahead becomes an invitation to trust what comes next and remain open to where the journey might take us.
Undercurrent
Oil on Board 61cm x 46cm $1,100 NZD
Under Current explores what exists beneath what we first perceive. Light dances across the surface, drawing the eye towards its brightness, while deeper tones move quietly underneath. The painting plays with the contrast between what is immediately visible and what lies beneath.
In Passing
Oil on Canvas 45.5 x 55.5cm $900 NZD
Some moments catch our attention only briefly, yet stay with us long after we have moved on. In Passing captures the quiet beauty of a scene noticed almost by chance, where light flickers across the water and turns the familiar into something worth remembering. It is about the places we encounter in passing, and the unexpected impressions they leave behind.
Safe Harbour
Oil on Board 61x 46cm $1,250 NZD
The landscape opens into a quiet expanse of colour and light. Soft tones stretch across the field, creating a sense of vastness, while a quiet place of rest sits almost unnoticed in the distance. Safe Harbour reflects on the comfort of finding somewhere to pause, a small moment of calm and grounding within something much larger than ourselves.
Quiet Arrival
Oil on Canvas 76 x 61cm $1,650 NZD
Quiet Arrival captures the feeling of reaching a place where everything seems to soften. The landscape dissolves into pale colour and gentle light, creating a sense of calm that asks nothing from us but to be still. It is about those moments when we stop searching for what comes next and simply allow ourselves to arrive.
Dawn Keeper
Oil on Canvas 61 x 91cm $3,200 NZD
Dawn Keeper captures that presence at the moment the sun breaks through, when the tree seems to radiate with the landscape around it. Its twisting form feels rooted yet alive, carrying a sense of strength that has been shaped over time. The rising sun intensifies that energy, turning a quiet dawn into something powerful and electric.
For a Moment
Oil on Canvas 102 x 76cm $2,600 NZD
For a Moment explores the quiet balance between stillness and movement. Water flows continuously beneath the hanging branches, carrying colour and light across its surface, while the space around it feels calm and unhurried. It captures that feeling of finding stillness within something that never stops moving.
A reminder that peace does not always require the world around us to stand still.
Flow State
Oil on Canvas 122 x 91cm $2,500 NZD
Flow State explores the moment when a scattered mind begins to quiet and everything starts to fall into place.
Built from fragments of colour, light and movement, the painting reflects that shift from mental noise into complete focus, where thought gives way to instinct and the world seems to flow naturally around you.