About Ngaio

Ngaio has never completed formal art training but rather tackles her art with an innate and intuitive approach. Working through the creative process using varied materials and the freedom to express herself, drawing connections from her environment, space and experience. Apart from being a wife and mother she has spent years as an interior decorator with a successful business, and is currently working in a school art department as a teachers aide and enjoys imparting her art practice knowledge onto the students and inspiring a love of creativity.

Red Cross

To view a collection of Ngaio's works, see her Online Portfolio, or Email her for more information.

Exhibition History

Solo Exhibitions

  • September 2009 “Reunion” Exhibition — Milton House Gallery
  • February 2009 “Pathways” Exhibition — Whitsunday Anglican School Art Centre
  • December 2008 “Correspondence” Exhibition — Artspace Mackay Foyer
  • 2006 “Heartfelt” Exhibition — Mackay Town Hall
  • 2005 “Flotsam” Exhibition — Whitsunday Anglican School Art Centre
  • 2004 “Quiet Moments” Exhibition — Mackay Town Hall
  • 2003 “Earth” Exhibition — Earth Homewares Milton Brisbane

Group Exhibitions

  • October 2009 Waters Edge Travelling Exhibition — Artspace Mackay also (Cairns Regional Gallery, Perc Tucker Gallery Townsville)
  • October 2009 “Subject Matters” Postcard Exhibition — Artspace Mackay
  • July 2009 Artstreet — Mackay
  • June 2009 Art on Show — Mackay (1st Prize Easel Painting Award)
  • August 2008 “Waters Edge Environmental Art Project” with Jill Chism — Cape Hillsborough and Broken River
  • February 2008 Libras Artist Book Exhibition — Artspace Mackay
  • February 2008 Linden Postcard Show — Linden Centre of Contemporary Arts — Melbourne
  • June 2008 Art on Show — Mackay
  • June 2007 Art on Show — Mackay
  • July 2006 “Tropical Abstractions” — Arthouse Gallery Mackay
  • “Great Walks Project” Artspace Mackay

Artists Statement

My paintings are an intuitive response to the fossiking and gathering of objects and are an interpretation of the collection of old letters, recipes and stamps passed down to me from my grandmother.

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A nostalgia for the discarded and a reflection of the past lives of found objects. There is a vaguely mosaic feel to the paintings, collages and assemblages I work on. A placement of pieces, like the pieces of a jigsaw fitting together, or the laying of random mosaic tiles. It is a response to the entwined nature of our lives and the layering and overlapping of everything around us.

Abstract works provide me an outlet for pure intuitive mark making, allowing colour to be built up and then eliminated to reveal marks and lines, often accidental, but purposefully left. Neutral tones, taupes,and lots of white, sometimes a splash of red and chocolate are my favoured palette. Mostly there is just a pure joy in the paint being moved around the canvas. The sense of connection to the found objects being place, and the thread of nostalgia for the texture and smell of the papers and letters used in the collages I also work on.