I am a musician singer song writer and started sketching and painting in April 2024. My sketches and paintings were initially in response to the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza Palestine. I then started expanding my art to paintings that symbolise my life as a New Zealander with European and Cook Island Maori heritage. Many of my paintings are portraits of family members and friends. I like to paint my experience being part Cook Island Maori. Half caste is what we called ourselves when we were young which was a simple way of saying I didn't fit in the Pakeha world or the Maori world. Olive skinned, hazel eyes, and brown hair, too fair to be Maori, too olive skinned to be Pakeha. I was raised to appreciate our natural world and often include the native flora in NZ and the Pacific in my paintings. The landscape on my personal profile page is my family home in Pukerua Bay in 1961. I am an activist in my music and songs and now in my art work. I sold my first painting that I was exhibiting at the Titahi Bay Cafe. This painting was called the NZ Divide and it was a painting of privileged housing and state housing. The painting was brought by a local lady who lived in house that over looked the state houses in Titahi Bay. I am still experimenting with different mediums and styles of art including abstract and impressionism. I consider my portraits to be impressionist art and not realism. I am using both acrylic and oil paint.