meet our
Local Artists
From the outset we have wanted to create a safe space for this community and provide accessibility for everyone to express themselves through their own creative outlet. As part of this vision, we are creating a virtual space to promote and share talent in our local community.
meet our local artists
Charlie White
Tattoo Artist
What do you do?
I am a tattoo artist. Day to day I am creating unique art to tell people’s stories, capture a part of their life, and weave their inspirations and ideas into art that can be carried with them throughout this lifetime.
What inspires you?
I didn’t find my thing, it found me, and I was open to receiving it. I never ever thought I could be a tattoo artist, but the feeling when I first put ink in skin, that was it.
After that first tattoo, the endless studying of all things tattoo. Needle configurations, machines, hygiene, different styles, tattoos through time, and culture. I didn’t have to ‘stick at it’, it wasn’t a chore. I was inspired and I still am every day.
Courtney Gaudion
Illustrator & Designer, Website and Branding Specialist
What do you do?
I illustrate beautiful thoughts and musings. I specialise in building beautiful websites and branding too!I’ve always been creative; illustrating, writing, dreaming, imagining but most recently fell into designing alongside illustration. It’s a dream come true to serve, inspire and empower people with my creativity in order that they then inspire and empower others in their businesses and lives.
What inspires you?
My artwork and thoughts often come as a result of personal life experience, I hoped that my journey and findings would resonate with others.
Bethany G. Rogers
Writer and Communications Specialist
What do you do?
There’s two parts to my work: my commercial copy/content writing and strategy, and my dark and twisted short stories and poems. In my spare time, I love going on adventures (trail running, open water swimming, hiking, and a bit of boxing). I’m also a Trustee of the Queenstown Writers Festival and run the Queenstown Creative Writing Group.
What inspires you?
It’s really a hopeless addiction and something I simply had to pursue. I love how words can entertain, inform and truly transform someone’s world.
“Can I see?”
The bedroom is semi-dark, a curtain hangs loosely over the window and clouds brew trouble in the skies. It feels like evening, but it’s not. Just a trick of winter.
She holds tightly onto the lid of the shoebox. A box for hiking boots, men’s, size 12. But I know that’s not what is inside.
She shakes her head.
The shoebox is quiet, I’m worried. She’s done this before. It started when they sent her to boarding school, after Mum died. The boarding school sent her back. They were worried.
She scratches the side of the shoebox, an awful grating sound that’s magnified in the silence. I don’t know what to do. Her hair is unwashed and she’s wearing the black hoodie, like always. It smells of sweat ingrained, but the colour doesn’t show the stains. I think she’s killing them, but I can’t be sure. I can’t see blood stains on black fabric.
She buries them. In the shoeboxes. The others say she finds them that way, that she’s just burying them, the way we buried Mum. In a plain, brown box with blue nigella damascene stolen from a neighbour’s garden.
There’s a quiver from the box. It’s alive.
“Can I see?”
She lifts her hand from the lid and the hare springs out. A jack-in-the-box. Its eyes are so big. Big and wide and yellow with a dark brown dash in the middle. One of its black-tipped ears is split, an old war-wound. Its glossy, wet fur flashes in the dull light as it dashes around the room in panic. All we do is watch. Like we did once before. We watch while it thrashes and thuds against the walls until it drops.
“We can bury it now, together,” she says.
written by Bethany Rogers
Sophia Bishop
Illustrator and graphic designer
What do you do?
I create illustrations that celebrate women living their best lives. I focus on calm scenes, and I aim to show diverse women and creative pursuits in my illustrations.
What inspires you?
Last year (2020) I was living in the UK right before the COVID 19 lockdowns hit… I ended up drawing every single day for a year. While in the UK I had some incredible collaborations with a women’s co-working space, a vegan handbag company, and an eco-conscious blog. I love to work with small businesses that are focused on doing good in our community.
Rachael Irwin
Owner, creator, designer and tea maker of West Moor Design
What do you do?
I create hand drawn illustrations and transform & colour the pieces digitally to create unique art work for wall art, postcards, stickers and magnets. I also repurpose pre-loved clothes and fabrics into pieces that you will love every day again.
What inspires you?
After a few years of traveling I was itching to get back into designing and drawing. I was so inspired by the amazing places I had seen on my travels to start drawing and found it hard to get into the design industry so I just went for it and started creating for myself.
