Evan Woodruffe

Evan Woodruffe is an artist based in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, and exhibits throughout the Asia-Pacific region, with work in significant collections in Singapore, Australia, China, the USA, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Writer Lucinda Bennett referred to his works as Wet Maps, “living, breathing ecosystems, and visualisations of a new kind of urbanism”. 

Evan has MFA (1st Class) from Elam, and is a long-standing supporter of the visual arts, not only as an artist, but as a collector, sponsor, teacher, and advocator. He runs Akepiro Street Studios, home to a dozen artists since 2008, is Global Brand Ambassador for both Schmincke Artist Colours and da Vinci Artist Brushes, Germany, and is a regular contributor to community art events.

Recent exhibitions include No Straight Lines at Hastings City Art Gallery, and the 2023 Chengdu Biennale, China. Evan is represented by Paul Nache Gallery.

www.evanwoodruffe.com 

Jana Branca

Jana Branca, a Taranaki-based fine artist, completed her BA in Fine Art at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Having lived on three continents, her interest in cultures, worldviews, and humanity was cultivated. In 2016, she relocated to New Zealand with her family, where she found a new direction in her work.

Jana’s art revolves around portraiture and figure painting, allowing her to explore various aspects of the human condition. She delves into our reliance on worldviews to interpret experiences and shape our identities. Themes of boundaries, restrictions, and the intrinsic value of humankind permeate her work.

Her painting process involves building the canvas with mark-making, leaving parts undeveloped—a metaphor for the inescapable confines of time. Jana invites viewers to engage with her work as individuals, decoding non-verbal cues and connecting through colour and mark-making. Her recent achievements include winning the People’s Choice Award twice at the Tasman National Art Awards (2019 & 2021) and the Supreme Art Award in 2022 and 2023. She was also a consecutive finalist in the Adam Portraiture Awards (2020 & 2022) hosted by the NZ Portrait Gallery in Wellington.

BRUCE MORTIMER

Bruce Mortimer  is primarily a photorealist creating charcoal drawings of people, objects and landscape, and the interaction between them, at times incorporating some looseness or flirting with hyperrealism.  He alternates between series than include abstract expressionist paintings in acrylics, oils and mixed media including found industrial materials, and fine art photography.  He is represented by various galleries and since 1995 has shown his work professionally in well over 150 exhibitions and art fairs, and won various awards including the main award in the NZ Artshow. He has been the resident artist at ASB Bank (2016,2017).  His monochrome photography is featured in a published 180 page single-author book (2007), and he has been involved in public art projects with his paintings.  Almost all his work references the various emotions of solitude, both positive and negative, often through elements of minimalism, and therefore represents a passive social commentary on our chaotic, materialist and competitive world.