Zoë Nash is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Her brightly coloured, abstract works explore a slow and mindful accumulation of repeated and highly detailed mark making.
Reflecting her love of nature, Zoë’s works increasingly draw on selected plant and flower motifs as inspiration. Frequently initiated by things seen, things spoken, or things remembered, narrative and nostalgia are also used to trigger personal connection with viewers.
After taking some art classes with Zoë at Browne School of Art, it was a real privilege to talk to her and get to know her and her practice a little better. Zoë speaks about the 'round about way' she came to design and the fine arts arena and her challenging year completing a one year masters degree in fine arts without having an art practice at the time, and how she didn't make art for 4 years after this experience.
We discuss her identity crisis at the age of 30 as a British born woman who had lived in NZ for as long as she'd lived in the UK and how this translated into her fine arts study, which focused on identity, the use of autobiography and the role of female narratives. Zoë talks about how renting her own art studio finally kick started her art practice again and why her work became so connected to nature. She shares the ideas behind the presence of dots and repeated marks in her work and how that can be therapeutic and sometimes reflects her own personal stories.
AND Zoë has the best list yet of artists and reasons why they have inspired her and informed her practice.
