I was always pretty neurotic like that, always a planner, even when I didn’t have any set goals like I do now. I didn’t like school or my first couple jobs, so I quit all that and went to art school which helped me channel this unfocused ambition.

I’m Ngāi Tahu. Most of my family can speak Māori. They’re more immersed in the culture, whereas I never grew up learning much about it. Now I love putting it into my art, especially words and incorporating them into my work, I haven’t really had an outlet until now.

I’ve worked at a couple of community art organisations. I currently work at The White Room, an art space for intellectually disabled artists and other groups. I have been in that field for over 6 years and I have run multiple different art groups including Māori art groups, a printmaking club as well as sessions for Rangatahi. I really love helping people through art and teaching.

The beauty of printmaking is you’ve got this piece of wood you’ve carved and inked up that you can use to make prints, shirts, stickers, paste ups. The versatility of print mediums is what drew me to it and what led to the majority of opportunities I’ve had; collab-ing with all sorts of artists, exhibitions, street art events. I’ve always liked the idea of having something that took weeks to carve and print, but seconds to slap up on a wall or a shirt as many times as you want. Same idea applies to stencils as well. I really like the spamming and repetition of street art, printmaking lends itself well to that.

Now we’ve got a studio, me and Klaudia. It’s really nice to have a partner I have so much in common with. She’ll push me into being a better technical artist. I’ll push her into getting herself and her work into the world. I’ve always been quite assertive when it comes to getting my stuff seen and included in areas and communities that I’m keen to be involved in”