The Memory of Water, 2025

Waiheke uku (clay) on varnished board
$55,000 for the series or
$9500 per panel

Down by the river, at the base of mountains, along sandy banks, clay—uku—emerges as both substance and metaphor. Diverse and alive, it flows with water, carried across shorelines, waterbodies, and even through our bodies. Each clay body is unique, reflecting the beauty of its community of soils. Clay forms strongly under pressure; it protects, it heals, and it facilitates culture.

Gathered respectfully from the whenua, uku becomes a social fabric—binding communities through shared histories and enduring connections to land, water, and sky. The work honours this strength and diversity of people and place, celebrating cultural relationships and exchanges that ripple across the motu and the Tasman Sea. It gestures toward a living sense of belonging, care, and unity—sustained, like water, by memory and flow.

What does it mean to say that water remembers? Could every drop carry the journeys it has taken—passing through stone, across valleys, into bodies? Might water hold memory as it travels between places, bearing the substances and stories of all it touches? These questions echo through the work, inviting reflection on the way water sustains, connects, and transforms.

The memory of water lingers in every ripple and flow. It carries the trace of stone, soil, and story—holding the voices of Ancestors and the rhythms of Country. Water is a living archive: shaping land, nurturing life, and acting as a vessel of connection that remembers and renews across generations and cultures.
As rivers carve valleys, leaving traces in their flow, so too do my fingertips create ravines in the artwork—echoes of roots, channels, and lifelines. Each mark carries story, strength, and transformation....

Learn more or download the catalogue HERE