Southland Arts Trail: Trudy Burdon & Lynn Grace
Haere mai! Welcome to our temporary artists-in-residence Trudy Burdon and Lynn Grace.
Transport World is proud to support the Southland Arts Trail 2022.
An Arts Murihiku initiative, the Southland Arts Trail 2022 encourages people to travel around our region to visit a talented and diverse range of local artists.
We had a chat with both Trudy and Lynn about their work.
Q: Tell us a bit about your journey towards becoming an artist: how did you get here?
Trudy: My passion for expressing myself through art is a relatively recent discovery. I’ve always enjoyed art and have been surrounded by a creative family, but only picked up a paint brush seriously in the past few years. Its been a real thrill to start my art journey and I’m really enjoying developing my own style and finding out that other people also enjoy my artwork.
Lynn: I took a long sought opportunity to be creative and have never looked back. Applying lot of dedication and hard work the journey is easier when doing something you love.
Q: How would you describe your work?
Trudy: My emerging style is abstract, patterns and shapes that have initially focused on my biculturalism, an expression of my Māori (Ngāti Porou) and Dutch heritage. I have also started doing landscapes and I’m looking forward to exploring this further, along with other styles.
Lynn: Mainly southern landscapes is my focus in oil colour medium, however realism is something I aspire to in any art medium.
Q: Where does your inspiration come from?
Trudy: I am inspired by my family, identity, community, connection and nature.
Lynn: Colour, culture and the beauty of our southern landscapes.
Q: What do you hope people feel when they see your pieces?
Trudy: When people are looking at my pieces I hope they get a sense of connection, because that’s one of my key themes. I get a real sense of joy from being able to express myself creatively and the really great thing about art is that you get an opportunity to pass that feeling onto other people. So I hope my art sparks joy in others.
Lynn: A special memory, or a feeling of joy in colour or form, and an investment.
Q: What is special to you about being involved in an initiative like the Southland Art Trail 2022?
Trudy: The Murihiku art community is really under-rated. There is a lot of talent out there and a huge opportunity to tell a great story about Southland and the people who live here. By connecting artists together across the province we can showcase some of the wonderful work that is being produced, and it provides another avenue for talented artists to take their mahi further. It also allows the wider community to engage with and support local artists.
Lynn: Being part of a bigger arts community, engaging with others and sharing in the arts with the wider community also.