About Rebecca
Rebecca lives and works in Upper Hutt, Aotearoa New Zealand. Alongside her art practice she is an arts educator, illustrator and conceptual designer.
Rebecca employs painting and drawing techniques to respond to the world around her in a visual narrative way. She works with painting and drawing in her conceptual and visual response.
Her work is informed by research on the subject matter she is exploring, as a result materiality is an important part of this investigation.
Rebecca holds an MFA from Massey University Wellington and has exhibited extensively within New Zealand as well as showing internally in Israel.
Rebecca has taught drawing and painting at various universities in New Zealand as well as teaching illustration in China.
“Within my artistic practice narrative and figuration are important aspects of my work. My artwork is regularly informed by the written word, be it fairy tales, historical text or novels. My response to this stimuli is explored through painting and drawing often employing the use of the figure with gestural mark making and colour.
Representations of animals, a regular feature in my works, are interwoven into the composite arrangement of my paintings. The animals are often metaphors for different aspects of humanity. The perspective of distance, be it geographical or historical, also informs my work.
My arts projects are often research led which informs the scale and use of materials I engage with. The work evolves through the act of painting allowing chance happenings to occur. I enjoy the impromptu (and sometimes invited) indirect participation of others in the formation of the work. These encounters challenge me to work in ways I might not immediately expect of myself.” – Rebecca Holden